razmus
Joined: Jun 23, 2017
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 Posted:
Jan 14, 2025 - 14:14 |
 
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The recent potential rebirth of my local TT group went instantly to status 'stillborn' a few weeks ago when I mentioned the current Blood Bowl rules are scattered across several sources, and the FAQ/Errata is currently nineteen pages.
"<former league commish> will never play anything scattered GW Style." - to quote another another former league commish.
The upcoming Almanac might help those feelings some, we'll have to see. I struggle with the memory of the 2016 rules finally being summarized in fewer books just as the new edition was leaked. |
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Carthage
Joined: Mar 18, 2021
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| Posted:
Jan 14, 2025 - 15:37 |
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| Sp00keh wrote: |
Things like Trickster is a good example. it's a fun ability, but if you don't know about it and plan your turn around blitzing the illusionist, it could wreck your day
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To be fair, I think that's more an element of FUMBBL than Blood Bowl. When you are playing over tabletop and someone says "oh I didn't know about trickster", most opponents, outside of a tournament maybe, are going to let you redo your move. Especially since trickster occurs before you roll any dice. I know thats a niche answer to your niche point, but the overall concept still stands. I agree that star player skills are an unnecessary knowledge check and a lot of the traits are getting a bit much too, but they're all far simpler than the bodyguard rules in 40k, for example.
Replying to two comments at once; I get that they wanted to get to 12 skills for the random table. What I suggested was they could combine a couple of the lackluster or boring skills into one and make design space for something more interesting.
Example:
Combine Safe Pair of Hands and Diving Catch into "Reliable Hands" in the agility table. This frees up a passing slot for something like "High Velocity" that could do something like "if a player fails to catch or interfere with a pass from this player, they are knocked down". That skill does something new with the game mechanic instead of Diving Catch's main use of being a partial +AG that is only applied to catching accurate passes (the catching an inaccurate pass is so rare its barely worth mentioning especially with HMP being useless now)
I have a handful of other examples I've thought about, but the main theme is either the skill is bad and you feel bad randoming it (ie Pile Driver, Shadowinga) so you fire the player and never use it anyways; or a skill is just a partial stat increase which is a bit boring but more acceptable.
I mostly just hope GW acknowledges that they either made skills that are bad on purpose, which is questionable game design but this is a game that has Goblins as a playable team, so its plausible. Or they wanted all the skills to be useable but failed to understand the way the game will be gameified, which is more concerning as a gaming company. |
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Sp00keh
Joined: Dec 06, 2011
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| Posted:
Jan 14, 2025 - 16:28 |
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| Carthage wrote: | | To be fair, I think that's more an element of FUMBBL than Blood Bowl |
Fumbbl is much more of a help than a hinderance when it comes to learning the game
On here, the computer does it all for you, so you can't miss out when there's an assist, or a guard, or a tacklezone, or whatever. New players on tabletop get that sort of thing wrong a lot
Also here you don't have to buy every spike magazine to be able to see someone else's rules, for example
Anyway the point is, Trickster (although fun) is a 'gotcha', and adds to the burden of learning the game,
also it could just have been Sidestep instead and be almost the same |
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Carthage
Joined: Mar 18, 2021
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Jan 14, 2025 - 17:00 |
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Hm, not sure I agree, but that's fine. I think being on tabletop playing a casual game with someone that knows how to play is probably the best way to learn because you can always rewind and redo something you don't understand or they can set up scenarios on the fly to show how a rule works. FUMBBL wasn't really designed for that.
And that's not a knock on the platform, I love this site, I've put 1500 games in 4 years on here, so averaging more than 1 game a day! The virtual platform was a bit like bumpers in bowling, yeah I couldn't gutter ball but I didn't learn how to actually play with intent until I played OTB with someone. |
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koadah
Joined: Mar 30, 2005
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| Posted:
Jan 14, 2025 - 17:02 |
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| razmus wrote: | The recent potential rebirth of my local TT group went instantly to status 'stillborn' a few weeks ago when I mentioned the current Blood Bowl rules are scattered across several sources, and the FAQ/Errata is currently nineteen pages.
"<former league commish> will never play anything scattered GW Style." - to quote another another former league commish.
The upcoming Almanac might help those feelings some, we'll have to see. I struggle with the memory of the 2016 rules finally being summarized in fewer books just as the new edition was leaked. |
We got spoilt having the full ruleset in one PDF.
When they changed the rules, they issued a new PDF. |
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Drrek
Joined: Jul 23, 2012
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| Posted:
Jan 14, 2025 - 20:38 |
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| Sp00keh wrote: | | Carthage wrote: | | To be fair, I think that's more an element of FUMBBL than Blood Bowl |
Fumbbl is much more of a help than a hinderance when it comes to learning the game
On here, the computer does it all for you, so you can't miss out when there's an assist, or a guard, or a tacklezone, or whatever. New players on tabletop get that sort of thing wrong a lot |
How often do you see a new player check a block, see its not favorable, move a player in a way that doesn't actually give an assist, and then check again? Because I see it all the time.
And that's just a base rule of the game, that is complex enough that it is hard for a lot of players to grasp properly. Heck there are entire videos with homework in them to get people to understand how blocking and assists work.
To be clear, I'm agreeing with the quote here. The Fumbbl client handles a lot for you and makes just playing the game (albeit poorly for some) much easier. Play in person with new players and they often will be constantly struggling to figure out what type of block they are trying to throw.
Add in the dozens of skills, and how can you reasonably expect new players to keep it all in their heads. Heck, there are skills that I, as an experienced player, still only have a general sense of what they do because they are rarely used. The game is complex, and has a high skill ceiling. More complexity needs to justify itself to be worth it. |
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koadah
Joined: Mar 30, 2005
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Jan 14, 2025 - 20:46 |
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Drrek
Joined: Jul 23, 2012
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Jan 14, 2025 - 21:43 |
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| koadah wrote: | Blocking really is just core blood bowl though. You do have to teach them that.
The other stuff? I really do just ignore most of it. You don't need it.
If they stick with it, you can add stuff in bit by bit. That is if you know it/can be bothered yourself. 
If they become a fanatic, they will learn it themselves. |
I'm not arguing blocking isn't core or that it should be removed or anything.
I'm arguing the base is already complex and hard to get into for a lot of people, so every extra bit of complexity needs to have a good reason behind it. |
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Carthage
Joined: Mar 18, 2021
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| Posted:
Jan 14, 2025 - 21:46 |
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I do want to stipulate that I was saying "Playing a learning game with someone that knows how to play OTB" as being the best way to learn.
Two completely new people playing after glossing through the rules will be a disaster for sure. But that's true of nearly every tabletop or board game.
I don't find blood bowl to be all that complex, but Im coming from playing a bunch of board games and a couple tabletop ones. We can disagree on how we view the complexity of this game though because we have different experiences.
I don't really want them to keep ballooning the amount of traits or skills, but I do want them to replace the ones that Koadah ignores because they aren't interesting or relevant and really only exist to either be a feels bad on a random or a gotcha moment. But I have controversial opinions about the game, I think "Block" is probably the biggest mistake in the metadesign of the game, for instance. |
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Drrek
Joined: Jul 23, 2012
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| Posted:
Jan 14, 2025 - 22:05 |
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| Carthage wrote: | I do want to stipulate that I was saying "Playing a learning game with someone that knows how to play OTB" as being the best way to learn.
Two completely new people playing after glossing through the rules will be a disaster for sure. But that's true of nearly every tabletop or board game.
I don't find blood bowl to be all that complex, but Im coming from playing a bunch of board games and a couple tabletop ones. We can disagree on how we view the complexity of this game though because we have different experiences.
I don't really want them to keep ballooning the amount of traits or skills, but I do want them to replace the ones that Koadah ignores because they aren't interesting or relevant and really only exist to either be a feels bad on a random or a gotcha moment. But I have controversial opinions about the game, I think "Block" is probably the biggest mistake in the metadesign of the game, for instance. |
My personal test I'd want to do about block (since it is that much better than other skills) would be to split it into 2 skills: one that works when you're blocking, and one that works when you're being blocked.
Would this be a good change? I dunno, just something I would test with. |
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