An Alternative Tournament Structure: The Rolling Rumble

[Jexik]

I really enjoy tournaments, but I also don't mind the downtime. I'll eat lunch, go to the bathroom, call a friend, talk to other people there, etc... It's pretty uncommon for me to just be sitting around doing nothing at a tourney.

[ollie]

Originally Posted by Onacara

If you are doing no repeats then everyone needs to be there for the entire day from start to finish right?

No, not required at all. However, if you are expecting big changes through the day it might be better to have a maximum number of waiters (those who are waiting, not those serving drinks) that changes depending on the number of active players instead of relying on the total number of maps to control it.

This format is alot like the Warmachine Championship set-up they had at TempleCon which was basically you just found someone to play and you played them...and the overall winner was the person with the best winning percentage based on a minimum number of games played for the weekend. So someone who only made it for 2 of the 3 days had a chance to win it as the guy who played all 3 days.

Interesting, I didn't know that. With the win-difference condition rather than the win-percentage one, I guess those that are there longer have an advantage. I don't mind this: I'm imagining having gaming from noon until a 4.30pm half-hour warning or something (i.e. usual tournament hours) and being able to accommodate latecomers as an added bonus, as opposed to letting people start at 7.30am and get a whole bunch of games in before the main crowd shows up.

Originally Posted by pegasus

Quote:
Originally Posted by ollie
.....
When a game finishes the winner starts a game with someone he has not yet played who is sitting at an empty map according to the following order of priority:
.....
The loser starts a game with the person who has been waiting longest that she has not yet played.
.......
This part might get you into trouble. So much for equal opportunities.

This is a new habit I've got into from my teaching: when you have a situation with more than two people, alternate their genders. It makes it easier to track what is happening. I also tend to give them names like Alice, Bob, Clare, Dave,... in order too.

Originally Posted by Junge Roman

I like the concept. I think scoring is the biggest problem. Why not combine number of games and winning percentage into 1 metric, counting it 40/60 or something? That way, a guy is not rewarded for playing slowly.

Nice idea. However, I'm trying to keep it as simple as possible. The TD will be playing too and shouldn't have to deal with too many questions. Inexplicably, the average tournament goer seems not to enjoy incredibly intricate discussions on format variants. Weirdies.

I think the switch to win-difference might be sufficient to encourage faster play. Also, I've never witnessed actual stalling, I don't think. Some people play more slowly (I'm one of them) but they seem to regardless of whether they're winning or losing. Given that at every event I've been at everyone has a really good attitude to the day I'm inclined to not give much weight to concerns about how the system might be exploitable. As I said above, I don't expect "important" events like the GenCon Championship to adopt this model; I'm thinking of it more as a way to bring some of the best things about tournaments (commitment to an army you have to play multiple times; reasonably competitive games; prizes;...) to a slightly less formal setting. Something between gameday and tournament perhaps.

Originally Posted by Jexik

I really enjoy tournaments, but I also don't mind the downtime. I'll eat lunch, go to the bathroom, call a friend, talk to other people there, etc... It's pretty uncommon for me to just be sitting around doing nothing at a tourney.

Yeah, I enjoy the downtime too, but I'd still rather it was uptime. Also, there will be bits of waiting with others to chat too. The main motivation for the system (other than trying to emulate the immensly fun Rumble format) is not to have to finish early.

Actually, maybe there needs to be some break time built in. Five minutes between games for anyone that doesn't want to leap straight in? The option to declare yourself inactive temporarily to get some lunch?

[RobertDD]

Originally Posted by ollie

Rather than win percentage, how about number of wins minus number of losses? (Win difference? Does this have a name?) This means that someone who goes 6-1 beats someone that goes 4-0, which I think is how it should be. Number of wins (or, equivalently, number of games) would still be the second splitter (So 7-2 beats 6-1). D20 to split equal records at the prize table.

When thinking about this system, I think the trade-off between an obvious winner and more 'scape is the central point. The more I go to tournaments, the less I care about the actual standings and more I care about the games themselves. The extra 'scape and still getting a pretty good ranking out seems like an improvement to me over our regular structure, but I can see that others might not agree.

If you count points left on the board (1 players' army, because you played to the end) and assign that amount as a positive number to the winner, and as a negative number to the loser, you could use that as the 2nd element in your scoring system, or even drop win/loss altogether and just use this metric. The d20 might still be nescessary, but it becomes much less likely. You might discard outcomes of unfinished games at the end of the day, or slightly complicate scoring: points left on the board for you - points left on the board for your opponent.

As someone who likes playing longer games with large amounts of figures, I think I would really like this system. I often have issues finishing tournament games within the assigned hour, and, while the system itself rewards the quicker armies, which is not me, I would rather get 4 whole games in than 5 that I did not finish.

Originally Posted by Jexik

I really enjoy tournaments, but I also don't mind the downtime. I'll eat lunch, go to the bathroom, call a friend, talk to other people there, etc... It's pretty uncommon for me to just be sitting around doing nothing at a tourney.

Since downtime is only negatively impacting the person taking the downtime, I see no reason why you wouldn't be allowed to take all the time you want after a game to freshen up and get a drink, and then come back for another game. If anything, it should promote the mixing. I see this as another perk for people like me (longscapers), who find themselves running from game to game without even a moment to run to the bathroom.

[dok]

Originally Posted by ollie

More details? I want something that people can immediately calculate themselves on their index card. That's why I mentioned dropping SoS altogether.

Well, the full-blown system I suggested would not be workable on an index card. It really requires someone with a laptop continuously updating the rankings by re-running an MMSE algorithm that looks at every game played.

However, a reasonable first-order approximation of your updated ranking can be done using partial scoring and a cellphone calculator - it's one division and two additions:

New ranking = old ranking + (opponent's ranking + game point diff)/(games played - 1)

(Your initial ranking being the point differential of your fist game. When I say point diff, I mean a number that is positive for the winner and negative with equal magnitude for the loser.)

So, players could update their ranking that way, and then give their game result to the TD. They would get their next game based on their approximate ranking, and the TD could drop by and give them their updated ranking at any point during their next game.

EDIT: I should add that if I were the person sitting at the laptop, and I had a good system programmed, I could do the update in 10 seconds. So making people do it themselves wouldn't be necessary.

Originally Posted by ollie

Rather than win percentage, how about number of wins minus number of losses? (Win difference? Does this have a name?) This means that someone who goes 6-1 beats someone that goes 4-0, which I think is how it should be. Number of wins (or, equivalently, number of games) would still be the second splitter (So 7-2 beats 6-1). D20 to split equal records at the prize table.

Yes, this has the nice effect of punishing stalling while still rewarding good play. You could just as easily do overall point differential.

Originally Posted by ollie

When thinking about this system, I think the trade-off between an obvious winner and more 'scape is the central point. The more I go to tournaments, the less I care about the actual standings and more I care about the games themselves. The extra 'scape and still getting a pretty good ranking out seems like an improvement to me over our regular structure, but I can see that others might not agree.

Frankly, I think the "obvious winner" can be a bit of a mirage in a lot of tournaments, based on who got the right breaks/matchups to land in the finals. If you played the tournament as a scramble until the final round, and then had finals, I don't think this would really be significantly less decisive than most tournaments.

[ollie]

Originally Posted by RobertDD

If you count points left on the board (1 players' army, because you played to the end) and assign that amount as a positive number to the winner, and as a negative number to the loser, you could use that as the 2nd element in your scoring system, or even drop win/loss altogether and just use this metric. The d20 might still be nescessary, but it becomes much less likely. You might discard outcomes of unfinished games at the end of the day, or slightly complicate scoring: points left on the board for you - points left on the board for your opponent.

Sensible, effective, and perfectly implementable. I hate it.

Being able to avoid counting points is one of the big plus-points for me with this system. I really don't think points remaining at the end of a victory are a very meaningful measure of much. I'm happy with letting the D20 decide who goes to the prize table first. (The D20 wouldn't change rankings; people could finish equal 3rd, or whatever.)

Originally Posted by RobertDD

As someone who likes playing longer games with large amounts of figures, I think I would really like this system. I often have issues finishing tournament games within the assigned hour, and, while the system itself rewards the quicker armies, which is not me, I would rather get 4 whole games in than 5 that I did not finish.

I totally agree with that last point. If I do this at the Marlboro tournament at the Fall though, it's probably going to be in the 450-500pt range. I've never been convinced that the larger games many (everyone except me?) in the northeast prefer are worth the added time needed. To extend your point: I'd rather have seven whole games at 450pts than five whole games at 600pts.

[RobertDD]

It occured to me that you might even calculate one's score as I outlined above, and then divide it by the number of games played. That way, the entire speed of playing is taken out of it, and no quick or slow armies are rewarded or punished, nor is anyone who plays against one of those armies punished. There probably should be a minimum of 4 full, played to the end, games to qualify for a standing, and the more I think about it, the better it seems to me to discard any unfinished game results.
Also, I dont think people should actually be ssitting at a map. Match-ups can and sshould be done by the coordinator. Just hand in your card when you are ready for the next game.

[ollie]

Originally Posted by dok

Well, the full-blown system I suggested would not be workable on an index card. It really requires someone with a laptop continuously updating the rankings by re-running an MMSE algorithm that looks at every game played.

However, a reasonable first-order approximation of your updated ranking can be done using partial scoring and a cellphone calculator - it's one division and two additions:

New ranking = old ranking + (opponent's ranking + game point diff)/(games played - 1)

Interesting stuff. It could work very well in this system, though I see a couple of issues:

a) It won't be intuitively clear to everyone how the outcome of a game changes the rankings, and so you lose the clear "win is this good, loss is this bad" feeling of an objectively less good system.

b) It requires that the TD does not play. If I'm going to the trouble of organising a tournament, I want to play some Heroscape!

Originally Posted by dok

Frankly, I think the "obvious winner" can be a bit of a mirage in a lot of tournaments, based on who got the right breaks/matchups to land in the finals. If you played the tournament as a scramble until the final round, and then had finals, I don't think this would really be significantly less decisive than most tournaments.

[/quote]

I agree and I'd go further and argue that finals are bad things to add on to Swiss systems (or variants such as this one). I've ranted on these boards at least a couple of times on the foolishness of play-offs, so I'll spare you now.

[ollie]

Originally Posted by RobertDD

It occured to me that you might even calculate one's score as I outlined above, and then divide it by the number of games played. That way, the entire speed of playing is taken out of it, and no quick or slow armies are rewarded or punished, nor is anyone who plays against one of those armies punished. There probably should be a minimum of 4 full, played to the end, games to qualify for a standing, and the more I think about it, the better it seems to me to discard any unfinished game results.
Also, I dont think people should actually be ssitting at a map. Match-ups can and sshould be done by the coordinator. Just hand in your card when you are ready for the next game.

In practice, there's no need to physically sit at the map. The small number of waiters can coordinate themselves without difficulty while watching other games, nipping to the bathroom, or whatever provided the system is sufficiently clear and simple (this was the case with the TempleCon Rumble). The TD does not need to be helping out with this process (ideally).

[RobertDD]

Originally Posted by ollie

Sensible, effective, and perfectly implementable. I hate it.

Being able to avoid counting points is one of the big plus-points for me with this system. I really don't think points remaining at the end of a victory are a very meaningful measure of much. I'm happy with letting the D20 decide who goes to the prize table first. (The D20 wouldn't change rankings; people could finish equal 3rd, or whatever.)

Fair enough. I actually hate tallying points myself, and you are right about them meaning little. A leftover Kato Katsuro is worth a lot, but without any troops left, his points are hardly a fair measure of the damage done to the ashigaru army. I "won" a game like that against a leftover Q9 because time ran out. Doubtful win, to say the least.

I do still really like dividing by the number of games played, to take out the quick or slow playing opponent or army factor, which really is a win/loss percentage, as Onacara mentioned (number of wins divided by number of games times 100%). d20 to settle ties (should be loads of fun at the end of the day!), minimum of 4 full games played, and unfinished games or mutual agreed upon ties (I've never seen that happen, but it could) discarded. Match-ups like you described above. I think that would make a great tournament system, that I might prefer quite a bit over swiss!

[ollie]

Originally Posted by RobertDD

I do still really like dividing by the number of games played, to take out the quick or slow playing opponent or army factor, which really is a win/loss percentage, as Onacara mentioned (number of wins divided by number of games times 100%). d20 to settle ties (should be loads of fun at the end of the day!), minimum of 4 full games played, and unfinished games or mutual agreed upon ties (I've never seen that happen, but it could) discarded. Match-ups like you described above. I think that would make a great tournament system, that I might prefer quite a bit over swiss!

This is what the original proposal did: win percentage was the primary tie-breaker. I'm not sure which method (win-difference or win-percentage) I prefer. Also, I wouldn't discard ties; I'd count them as 0.5 pts.

[Onacara]

Originally Posted by RobertDD

I think that would make a great tournament system, that I might prefer quite a bit over swiss!

Since the scoring system used is announced before the event it would also make sense to build your army accordingly.

[RobertDD]

Originally Posted by Onacara

Since the scoring system used is announced before the event it would also make sense to build your army accordingly.

That can be tricky though. At Rise of the Husky it was stated that victory points would be used to determine winners of each round. I interpreted that to mean that the winner of a game would be the one with the most victory points (which were defined as calculated according to GBs fractional scoring method), and I built an Ashigaru army to see how well that would do, fully realizing it would be an army that might very well not finish eevery round, but having Kato Katsuro in there would virtually guarantee a win in most victory point calculations.

As it turned out, you only won a game if you actually killed all your opponents. All games where time ran out were considered ties. This made a huge difference in final standing.
I still had a great day, of course. Any day that is a full day of 'Scape is a good day. and my Ashigaru actually did quite well in a number of games, but I would've build a different army had I realized that.

Anyways, I am getting way of track....
I like playing the meta game to a certain extend, but I also like systems that take the meta game out of the equation (as much as possible.)

By the way, Ollie, I wasn't suggesting win/loss percentage as a tie breaker, but just as the first and only way of determining the outcome of the tournament.