Fantasy Baseball

[Mr. Mask]

We started discussing Fantasy Baseball. Like if there was a baseball version of Blood Bowl. So, let's have an official thread for it.



Last, we were discussing the problems of flying creatures being allowed to participate. Harpies as outfielders might be seriously overpowered.

But, not definitely. Harpies and other fliers aren't necessarily agile and fast enough to effectively react to the ball going high and snatch it. However, if the ball had gone high for a slow drop... then that'd be a really easy way to put the batter out. Maybe fliers don't get the benefit of that rule?

[AMFV]

Well first I think we'd have to figure out what sort of setting we're using, if we're using a generic D20 type setting we could pull creatures from the SRD.

[Mr. Mask]

I don't mind using that as a basis. With a lot of things, you can break it down.

With harpies, it's one of a few possibilities:

1) A single harpy/flier, if skilled, can almost always catch the ball if it goes high. This means a team would always want to have at least one harpy outfielder, possibly more. You're also going to see the rules adjusted to avoid them being overpowered.

2) A team of harpy outfielders is required to have a good chance of catching the ball in midair. This would make it a genuine choice as to whether you should have harpy outfielders and how many. The batter could attempt to strike the ball at a lower trajectory to counter the harpies in use.

3) The fliers have such a hard time catching the ball, their flying is almost useless. They might still be usable, in that they can dive on the ball's position. If we go with this instance, it's possible this'd make them faster on reaching the ball (then problems of not being good throwers or runners could come in).

[AMFV]

We'd also need to work all of the stats in...

Strength would how hard we could throw or how hard the ball could be hit.

Dexterity would be accuracy...

Constitution would work towards how long the player could sustain the game.

The mental stats are harder to work out.

[Mr. Mask]

Better to go more to the essence of it, rather than extrapolated DnD style stats.


Batting Force -- how fast and far the ball flies when you hit it.

Batting Skill -- Being able to consistently hit the ball, being able to control where it goes when you hit it.

Throwing/Pitching Power

Throwing Skill

Pitching Skill -- Putting spin on a ball, making sure it goes exactly where you want it to at the speed you want it to.

Catching Skill

Running Speed

Alertness -- This helps you to avoid foul play, and stuff like being hit by the pitcher.

Endurance


Those are the first ones that come to mind, writing them up quickly. There'd also be combat skills for when someone decides to wallop you. Later, you work out your Strength, Con, Dex and whatever, if it is useful to the system.

[AMFV]

Well if we're using Baseball as the start we can extrapolate the statistics from standard Baseball stats.

[Mr. Mask]

Know where a good list of them is? I can't remember all of them.

[AMFV]

Know where a good list of them is? I can't remember all of them.

http://mlb.mlb.com/team/player.jsp?p...meType=%27S%27

There and you can pull up a pitcher and grab those as well.

[Mr. Mask]

Admittedly, one problem I see with baseball stats is that they're based off proven averages. Those aren't hard values, the same player would have much better stats if he had only gone up against bad players. They also seem to lack some statistics which might be important for a fantasy baseball game due to creatures dissimilar in those aspects. They are still very useful, of course.

I can't find the statistics on stuff like how often they hit specific types of pitches. Though, that data might be too indepth for a pen and paper game.

[AMFV]

Admittedly, one problem I see with baseball stats is that they're based off proven averages. Those aren't hard values, the same player would have much better stats if he had only gone up against bad players. They also seem to lack some statistics which might be important for a fantasy baseball game due to creatures dissimilar in those aspects. They are still very useful, of course.

I can't find the statistics on stuff like how often they hit specific types of pitches. Though, that data might be too indepth for a pen and paper game.

Well the averages aren't always true, sometimes a player will hit worse or better, some Pitchers have an off game, and in baseball succeeding 50% of the time is pretty amazing. Hell in batting succeeding 30 percent of the time is great.

Edit: The most important factor is the strategic aspect, who to walk, what pitches to throw, how hard to play at the beginning, when to switch the pitcher out.

[AMFV]

The more I think about this, the more I think that something like the Burning Wheel or Torchbearer type combat system would be a good bet for this. It has degree of effort and successes and such, and you could include the amount of effort that a pitcher puts into a particular set of pitches, and then have some kind of limiting factor.

Like a pitcher would roll and could spend points on pitches (to make them faster), then you'd be able to switch out for a closer or something.

[Mr. Mask]

I agree with your points. That's the goal, so it's just how you get there.

I prefer designing the system for the premise, but using ideas from other systems is a good idea.


As for endurance, it brings up a couple of points. Stamina of different roles, how quickly it should deplete. And time of a baseball game. Depending on how you simulate it, it may take quite a while (simulation can take much longer than actual events). And the longest baseball game went on for eight hours...

You can of course change some rules, putting hard limits on game time or the like. But depending on the level of simulation you want, that's going to effect how long a game will take.

[AMFV]

I agree with your points. That's the goal, so it's just how you get there.

I prefer designing the system for the premise, but using ideas from other systems is a good idea.


As for endurance, it brings up a couple of points. Stamina of different roles, how quickly it should deplete. And time of a baseball game. Depending on how you simulate it, it may take quite a while (simulation can take much longer than actual events). And the longest baseball game went on for eight hours...

You can of course change some rules, putting hard limits on game time or the like. But depending on the level of simulation you want, that's going to effect how long a game will take.

Stamina is the most critical thing in baseball, it's why Amphetamines were the drug of choice for pitchers for so long, at least for pitchers stamina is the most important statistic, depleting with each pitch every inning, until they finally start to make mistakes.

[Mr. Mask]

OK, then the question is how is best to simulate the game.

We could do it pitch by pitch, play out each strike of three strikes you're out, for each batter. Or we could do it per batter.

I can see the advantage of pitch by pitch, more tension to it, and you can react to stuff like if the difficult pitch keeps ending up a foul, so you go for an easier pitch. A question of if there's enough gameplay and strategy to it.

[AMFV]

OK, then the question is how is best to simulate the game.

We could do it pitch by pitch, play out each strike of three strikes you're out, for each batter. Or we could do it per batter.

I can see the advantage of pitch by pitch, more tension to it, and you can react to stuff like if the difficult pitch keeps ending up a foul, so you go for an easier pitch. A question of if there's enough gameplay and strategy to it.

Definitely pitch by pitch. At least that would be my vote, that way you can better simulate certain strategy, kind of like a sense motive check for the batter against the pitcher.

[AMFV]

So we'd have kind of a pitcher vs. batter duel, then we'd need a way to deal with the field portion that and stolen bases, that sort of thing.

So my question is should we go for more of a wargame type feel or more of an abstracted feel?

[Mr. Mask]

Yeah, I find it hard to neglect the awesome three strikes of the batter and pitcher duel.



Now, with field and running bases, the question is the strategy and gameplay of it. The batter's hit whose on which bases, and the formation of the fielders determines the situation. After that, it seems to be a series of gambles.

"I bet I Fielder A can manage this difficult pass to fielder B, so he can put out Base Runner A before he reaches Homeplate," kind of deal.

[AMFV]

Yeah, I find it hard to neglect the awesome three strikes of the batter and pitcher duel.



Now, with field and running bases, the question is the strategy and gameplay of it. The batter's hit whose on which bases, and the formation of the fielders determines the situation. After that, it seems to be a series of gambles.

"I bet I Fielder A can manage this difficult pass to fielder B, so he can put out Base Runner A before he reaches Homeplate," kind of deal.

Well the strategy comes into play when there are more runners on base, deciding who to throw to, who can be out faster, how many outs there are left in the inning. We also have a strong degree of randomness in terms of the hitting, also we'd have the hitting for the batter, if you try for a big hit it can turn into a pop fly and then it's an easy out, if you try for a ground ball then you have to have the athleticism to back it up, bunting is also a big part of the strategy.

For the infield it's a lot more speed and reaction time, and knowing which throws you can make. Positioning and attentiveness would need to be simulated as well.

Edit: And if we want to get into the whole real strategy, we'd need to play for several seasons and include rosters and trades and stuff, which players you play and which players you rest, chance of injury, all of that.

Basically as I see it, you'd increase age, which would decrease physical stuff, increase chance of injury, but that would increase the actual skill and knowledge related aspects of the game.

[Mr. Mask]

There's the question of avoiding minmaxing. If some jobs get too specialized, you'll always find athletes of the species which are best at that one job, unless you enforce some rotation or work out the violence aspect correctly.

[AMFV]

There's the question of avoiding minmaxing. If some jobs get too specialized, you'll always find athletes of the species which are best at that one job, unless you enforce some rotation or work out the violence aspect correctly.

Well there'd certainly be a need for rotation, I imagine that the way we could avoid "All Elves are Pitchers, All Orcs are Batters" is to make it one-time bonuses that vary by position for each race rather than generic stat bonuses. For example an Orcish batter would be able to rage, which might lower chance to hit and would increase distance, an Orc pitcher could boost speed and drop accuracy. We could have similar aspects for Elves as well.

Edit: Also I added some stuff to the previous post with the rotation and such.

[Mr. Mask]

Even without the rage buff, if the orcs are huge green muscled chaps, they would probably have some bonuses normally.

If it came to it, you could have stuff as odd as a point based system, where members of certain races in certain positions are worth more than others, with hard limits for certain tournaments and the like. That seems rather artificial, so I prefer to avoid it. Hopefully, it can be worked so that various races have enough good points in the fields that there isn't a clear optimal build (hobbits, for example, have the benefit of being extremely short, making it hard to pitch--particularly for tall creatures like trolls[?]).


I agree about the seasons and ageing. Would want to have rules for finishing a game briefly, so you can play several minor games within a session, but major games would probably take up an entire session.

[AMFV]

Even without the rage buff, if the orcs are huge green muscled chaps, they would probably have some bonuses normally.

If it came to it, you could have stuff as odd as a point based system, where members of certain races in certain positions are worth more than others, with hard limits for certain tournaments and the like. That seems rather artificial, so I prefer to avoid it. Hopefully, it can be worked so that various races have enough good points in the fields that there isn't a clear optimal build (hobbits, for example, have the benefit of being extremely short, making it hard to pitch--particularly for tall creatures like trolls[?]).


I agree about the seasons and ageing. Would want to have rules for finishing a game briefly, so you can play several minor games within a session, but major games would probably take up an entire session.

The points based system could be pretty interesting, and that would limit the number of Orcish sluggers you could have or Elven Pitching fiends, or harpy outfielders.

[Mr. Mask]

It's not a terrible solution. If they wanted to have such different creatures playing, but wanted to mix up the roles, then it is likely to actually occur.


Elves seem like they'll be pretty overpowered. Great runners, throwers/pitchers, outfielders, and probably the most skilful batters (even if not the most powerful). They also have great lifespans (potentially immortal).


There is the question of whether a bunch of elf players would get along with a troll pitcher on their team, however. Team politics could be interesting... though I figure baseball players are professional enough to not let it get to them.

[AMFV]

It's not a terrible solution. If they wanted to have such different creatures playing, but wanted to mix up the roles, then it is likely to actually occur.


Elves seem like they'll be pretty overpowered. Great runners, throwers/pitchers, outfielders, and probably the most skilful batters (even if not the most powerful). They also have great lifespans (potentially immortal).


There is the question of whether a bunch of elf players would get along with a troll pitcher on their team, however. Team politics could be interesting... though I figure baseball players are professional enough to not let it get to them.

Elves generally are depicted as lacking strength though and that hurts pitching and certain types of throwing, particularly all the way from the outfield to the innfield.

Edit: The point system will definitely be useful if you have a season where you need a rotation. Also a good pitcher isn't necessarily going to make a team.

[Mr. Mask]

Yeah, they sometimes get depicted as outright frail, so you could use that to balance their skill and quickness (and lack of ageing).

You could have the point cost effect reserves as well, potentially, so that you could choose between having a strong team at the beginning of the season with the risk of them wearing out, against more stable, large, and adaptable teams.

[AMFV]

Yeah, they sometimes get depicted as outright frail, so you could use that to balance their skill and quickness (and lack of ageing).

You could have the point cost effect reserves as well, potentially, so that you could choose between having a strong team at the beginning of the season with the risk of them wearing out, against more stable, large, and adaptable teams.

Well that's a just a depth of bench thing, also saving some points to trade players is important. Since it's like baseball we'd want to have some kind of streak modifier.

[Mr. Mask]

Streak modifier?

[Socksy]

Streak modifier?

But wouldn't Invisibility be cheating?

[AMFV]

Streak modifier?

Performance in baseball tends to come in streaks, a player that gets on a roll sometimes will stay that way.

[Mr. Mask]

Socksy: Oh no, that'd be streaking modifier. Depending on the character, it could have massive effect on the team's popularity.


A Mind Forever Voyaging: I see your point. I don't know much about why the huge streaks happen. Figured it was due to one team getting ahead of the others in training or the like, and it takes a while for the others to catch up. Since they do, a bonus might be necessary.



I was wondering about bat size. Since this game might have goblins and ogres, it makes you wonder if the bat size would change. Everyone uses the same bat regardless of who they are in baseball, I just wonder if it's the same when you have such dissimilarity.