Serious Discussion About Tournament Events

M

mikestrauss

Squire
Everyone,
I want to discuss tournament events, because I am always seeking to make tournament more fulfilling for everyone.

Specifically, I want to discuss the combat events (Combat, Hero's Combat, Spellcaster). Due to how these three events are structured, a team practically is required to have three good fighters and one good spellcaster to meaningfully compete in the tournament. Furthermore, additional good spellcasters can't participate in a combat event and neither can rogues meaningfully participate (scouts maybe).
In my opinion, the current tournament structure highly limits what teams can be effective. The possible solution to this is to change Combat.

Currently, combat is melee (and arguably ranged) weapon fighting with three team members. My proposal is to change it to free-for-all combat (any PC skills) with three team members. Team members can be swapped out between fights. This suggestion has both advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages
-Teams won't require as constricted a set of members to be competitive
-Spellcasters (beyond the first) and rogues have a chance to feel more useful
-Combat is less likely to bog down (three shields vs. three shields can be dreadfully slow)
-Teams can strategically choose which members to use based on the competition
-Racial skills more likely to matter

Disadvantages
-Field of Glass (see below)
-More daily resources will be burned on tournament
-Some fights will be very unimpressive (Pin-Web... done)

The biggest disadvantage here is the "field of glass" problem. This is the problem that alchemy could simply trump everything else. Honestly, that might be true, but I think the problem is limited by the fact that their are a lot of other events. Winning Combat could be as little as a 1-point advantage over another team. That probably isn't worth spending upwards of 10 gold on, especially when the event itself is only worth at most 3 gold to the team and, on average, teams rarely earn more than 15 gold total for the tournament.
If this change is made, Spellcasters would almost definitely be during a different logistics period than Combat.

I am mentioning this now so decisions can be made well in advance of the tournament and nobody is caught unaware.
Thoughts? Suggestions?

-MS
 
If you did an elimination bracket for a spellcasting tournament, much like the elimination bracket for fighers than more than 1 spellcaster could compete from a given team. If you ran this tournament on a seperate day from the mages mele even a 4 column caster should have plenty of spells for both days.

I'd be surprised if you had to have more than 4 rounds of single elimination spell casting and honestly its going to be the more experienced/older spellcasters with larger columns and more spells that will be able to make it far up the bracket most likely. Although if you are good and careful even just a 4 column of spells should be able to last you 4 quick duals.

Additionally, allowing high magic abilities and 9th level spells to be used in these tournaments again in my opinion makes the tournament/competition very fun and deep. There is a lot of strategy that can go into choose how to spend however many high magic points one has. For example should you buy all the cloaks and banes, or spend points to elementally augment your dragon's breath spell so that it can't be blocked by a spell shield, or should you take 'magic death' to fast cast death spells to win a dual.

As far as the argument for spells is concerned a death spell is no different than 'evocatio'ing down' someone and realistically NPC's or even the caster can be responsible for making sure life spells are given to any death spells received. Honestly I think there would be 'enough' to go around, especially if there was some sort of 'light promise' that no serious major engagements would be occurring because soldiers were around to help protect and whatnot.

I just think the more you open up these kind of competitions/duals the more fun and strategy is allowed. Sure some folks have IG qualms about spellcasting duals, or maybe they will choose not to use death spells when dualing and that is fine. And if people don't like OOG to play at tournament events there are many many more non tournaments than there are tournament. IG conflict can breed storyline and whatnot. That's what I like anyways :)
 
David,
Thanks for the response (though I'm not entirely sure if you liked the idea of changing combat or not). As for your spellcasting comments, except for the brackets, a lot of what you suggested has already been implemented. High magic was brought in last team tournament and death spells were brought in before that (I forget when). The only slight difference is that we have the casters cast life spells and treat it as a death spell if it isn't resisted (it saves 1 life/death from being cast).

-MS

Still looking for responses from others on whether Combat should be just weapons or free-for-all. Input from people intending to be on a team would be especially nice.
 
Mike,

As a member of a team that always wins combat tournament, I can tell you that no matter what system you chose, be it weapons or free for all, you will always have someone feel "under powered". I never was a fan for ffa, because it was nothing more than a gas fight, and yes there will be some teams that can afford to throw 10, 20, even 30g worth of alchemy. Weapon combat is slow and boring but that what happens when six shields get together, but it just costs skills and no gold, one of my favs. My suggestion may be to allow for the combat to be the entire campsite and the objective is to be the last team standing. You cant go behind a ward, no tavern, no cop, and no wall of force. Your team is still "alive" as long as one member of the team is still up. The HQ site has a nice area to run around and some good ambush spots, just a thought off the top of my head.
 
Make it ffa as you have sugested (all pc skills go) but make production use prohibited intierly (other than weapons, arrows, sheilds etc but no scrolls, potions, elixers, gas, tec). Three v three, duke it out by their prefered means. Make it a different day then casters duel and the hero single combat.
--bill
 
If it's a FFA then it should be just that, a free for all, every thing goes (following the law of the land). If a team wants to throw 20g, let them. They still have to land those packets. Racials will be a lot more important. Having a FFA w/o every thing is just weapons and spells. That's not much of a FFA to me.

I don't get this part; "My proposal is to change it to free-for-all combat (any PC skills) with three team members. Team members can be swapped out between fights."
So it's still 3v3 because a FFA to me is a "grand melee" style fight. Please explain more to me.

Mike S., is your overall goal to make the events more enjoyable to everyone? There are just some events that some people find boring (being of a simple mind me self, I dislike riddles/trivia).
 
The original goal of the Tournament was to have a team where everyone gets to shine at one point or another.

The spellcasters had their own competition, archers got theirs, bards and entertainers got theirs, and fighters got theirs.

By making a team free-for-all, you kind of defeat this purpose in my opinion.

I obviously like the current arrangement. Mike doesn't of course, which is why we have this debate every two years. ;)
 
To counter that Mike, fighters have a competition where they can shine. It is called the Hero's Combat. Nobody is suggesting removing that. You'll note I haven't even made a peep about Archery either.

I am saying that Combat, as it currently stands, is very limiting to the team makeup. It is an event that requires 3 capable fighters. If it were FFA, it would allow a wider spread of team layouts.

You still have Hero's Combat where a fighter shines. You still have Spellcasting where a caster shines. You still have Entertainment and Trivia where bards shine. You still have the Hunt where Black Forest shines. You still have Archery where archers shine. You still have the Race where fast people shine. And you still have Colors where butt kissers :D shine.

I was just considering making combat an event where multiple different types can shine, rather than restricting it to a specific group. If you want, you can still send 3 fighters into the battle. And, I suspect, they will still do well. This just gives you the option to use casters, rogues, alchemists, archers, etc.

-MS
 
Two things:

If you are going to do ffa then have it all team members vs. all team members of all teams going at once. No COP but anything else goes. It is over only when no one from another team have the ability to continue. The means you can bring up team members who are down, defensive imprisions (or dispel your own people) etc. Now it is real tactics etc. The downside is if you cannot replenish skills at the end you have just wiped a ton of resources and you can responsibly only run so much plot for that game day.

Personally though I would prefer to find ways that do not diminish the players ability to play the rest of the game. This also makes IG sense in a world where evil rifts. You have to be prepared.

Joe S.
 
you could stop running tournaments as events, and do them as Faire Days instead. That way there is no other plot other than the tournament.

from a marketing perspective, this is an interesting concept as well. If the tournament is the only thing going on, you could open it to the public for viewing. many people ask to be allowed to watch what we do before deciding to try it themselves. you could build a small seating section that is OOG. Let PCs and NPCs sell food for IG coin. Allow the public to purchase IG coin as if they were tokens so that they can purchase some of the food as well (which also brings in more money for the chapter).

People could still be allowed to arrive onsite the night before if they want. gives them time to work on strategy and practice things for colors and entertainment. Tourney begins Saturday at like 8am with colors. then proceeds with all other events. Entertainment is held at night perhaps while a great feast is going on. Build a small raised stage in the corner of the tavern and light it so the performers would be the center of attention. Again, designate an OOG area for visiting spectators, and again allow them to purchase food with IG coin they buy from the chapter.

End the night with some proclamation of the winners and a fireworks display.

If you're worried about OOG folks ruining the atmosphere, provide them simple (very cheap) commoner garb (a tabbard) with their day long pass and X amount of starting coin. Anyone wearing the tabbard is understood to be pseudo-OOG but doesn't distract form the experience.
 
I'd support this, except for the fireworks, the permits are expensive. :p
 
Simon said:
Two things:

If you are going to do ffa then have it all team members vs. all team members of all teams going at once.
Click to expand...

My original thought had been similar... until Mike S. brought up the point that everybody- not just combat characters should be able to have a place on a tourney team. Kinda the same reason Race isn't the whole team...


To Mike V''s point.... fighters still have Heroes. We have an event for every basic character concept" to excel and feel cool at... this change to combat would make the "well diversified party" feel cool. Which has always been at the forefront of our game mechanic. I think it's far superior to the triple hero combat" we have now- and I've competed in the last six of them.
 
Fearless Leader said:
The original goal of the Tournament was to have a team where everyone gets to shine at one point or another.

The spellcasters had their own competition, archers got theirs, bards and entertainers got theirs, and fighters got theirs.

By making a team free-for-all, you kind of defeat this purpose in my opinion.

I obviously like the current arrangement. Mike doesn't of course, which is why we have this debate every two years. ;)
Click to expand...


It might be the end of the world because...I agree with you 100% hehehehe.
 
Mike S. With a FFA don't you think that you would have to have 6 people that can hold there own in a fight instead of 4 (3 fighters and 1 caster for well...casters battle)?

Being on one of the teams that kicks major butt in 3 man, one of the most difficult teams we went up against was one that involved Errol's pc. This huge rogue with massive dmg from behind and a handful of dodges. Another team, Norden with Scarn (might have been the Jade Thorns then, too many Tournaments to remember). The teams don't necessarly have to have huge fighters on them as that some times doesn't even work; we went up against Paythen, Sparticus and Dugal and we won.
 
Gilwing said:
Mike S. With a FFA don't you think that you would have to have 6 people that can hold there own in a fight instead of 4 (3 fighters and 1 caster for well...casters battle)?
Click to expand...

No, since the FFA combat would still be just 3-men (you can swap if you want, but that was introduced a few years ago anyway). I think you would need 1 caster, 1 fighter (caster and hero respectively) and then at least one more combat capable person. You might choose a few more combat capable people to better round out combat, but it won't be essential. Also, it would allow the second or third caster on a team to feel useful in an event that involves PC skills. Right now a second caster on a team is only useful in events that entirely ignore PC skills (trivia, entertainment, colors, hunt, race).

I am looking to make the tournament MORE inclusive. I thought that was a laudable goal.

-MS
 
Fearless Leader said:
I'm seeing Mike's point, although not ready to embrace it yet.
Click to expand...

Wow. Again, I agree hehehe

mikestrauss said:
Gilwing said:
Mike S. With a FFA don't you think that you would have to have 6 people that can hold there own in a fight instead of 4 (3 fighters and 1 caster for well...casters battle)?
Click to expand...

No, since the FFA combat would still be just 3-men (you can swap if you want, but that was introduced a few years ago anyway). I think you would need 1 caster, 1 fighter (caster and hero respectively) and then at least one more combat capable person. You might choose a few more combat capable people to better round out combat, but it won't be essential. Also, it would allow the second or third caster on a team to feel useful in an event that involves PC skills. Right now a second caster on a team is only useful in events that entirely ignore PC skills (trivia, entertainment, colors, hunt, race).

I am looking to make the tournament MORE inclusive. I thought that was a laudable goal.

-MS
Click to expand...

Mike S. So how can you switch out people if it is a FFA? Maybe I have a mental block, but I keep seeing it as a "Grand Melee" like fight and not "round Robbin".
 
Good question. Sorry if I wasn't specific enough in the initial post.

My intent was to keep the format the same as Combat. Team vs. team, 3-men fighting at the same time, round robin.
All I meant by FFA was that combat wasn't going to be limited to only weapons. It would also allow magic and alchemy (probably with production point limits based on ability to craft).

Thus, the ability to swap people out could be a tactical choice based on an upcoming team (maybe you'd rather use your melee guys than your alchemy guys against the all dwarf/wilderkin team) or based on resource management (Frito is running out of spells, time to put in Dorito).

-MS
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top