The less turns you have to score in, the harder it is to do. The longer they take to score a touchdown the less turns the opposing coach gets. With a half of a game being constructed up of eight turns for each player and then just ending regardless, the coach that receives the kick off gets to generally dictate the flow of the game if they can avoid turning the ball over. If the turn structure has never been thought of as a problem before, why am I now pointing it out as being a problem? If it’s not broken why fix it? To highlight why I’ve come to the conclusion that it could be improved (I understand that for a lot of coaches they still won’t see it as a problem and they are perfectly fine with stalling, I was the same and can still enjoy the game that way, that doesn’t mean it can’t be improved upon) I should explain what it is about the current turn structure that is problematic. ![]() I was a very active participant during the Living Rule Book era of Blood Bowl and whilst a lot of improvements were added, I don’t recall the turn structure ever really being put under the microscope. Again I want to point out about the evolution of modern board game rules and highlight that the current Blood Bowl turn structure has been around for 27 years. I believe this was introduced to put a time limit on games, as with second edition games would last until one team scored x number of touchdowns. Having given the stalling and passing issues a lot of thought, the two are somewhat related and I feel both could be attributed back to the Blood Bowl turn structure that was introduced with 3rd edition in 1993. So whilst the refrain of “play better” isn’t exactly false, wouldn’t the game and community be better if everyone was enjoying it and we didn’t turn away players that may otherwise stick around? The Hypothesis Coming back to the game I still see stalling as a hotly contested issue, it’s clearly impacting on the enjoyment of some players and can drive others away from the game entirely. When I was younger I would just respond to stalling complaints that if you learn how to play against it then you can limit it (though it’s nearly impossible to entirely counter it if the other team gets early injuries on your team). The second season rules have left the root causes for stalling and lack of passing untouched. The changes may mean that more teams take Throwers when they ignored them before. Again though, I don’t think the amount of passing will really differ in any large degree. The leaked rules show perhaps the biggest forthcoming change, which I guess is a bid to address this. Another long standing complaint is about the lack of passing. The leaked rules have a very tiny section aimed at stalling players but I can’t envision it having any actual impact on the way a lot of games go. Perhaps the biggest single complaint I tend to see across the community, is that of stalling. ![]() The Aim of BB54īlood Bowl has, like many board games, been getting more popular, the release of the 2016 edition aided this but just left the game rules mostly untouched. If the leaked second season rules are anything to go by, there are some bigger changes in the new edition but I don’t think they’ve really addressed the bigger complaints in a meaningful way. BB2016 only made a couple of very minor tweaks to the final Living Rule Book. There have been a lot of complaints about certain aspects of Blood Bowl over the years and whilst some have been addressed, others are still prevalent. Board games have been gaining popularity in a big way, especially over the last 10 years and game design has changed to refine and address a lot of rules that either bog games down or make things less fun (think player elimination for one example). Having taken a break from Blood Bowl and exploring the diverse and constantly evolving board game market I came back to Blood Bowl with fresh eyes.
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