When determining scores for the next season of the League I think it would be a good idea to accept only half points for any scenario that has been replayed. In scenario 3 my group ended up being repeatedly mauled by Abhoth and yet our score reflects only our final win, not the suffering we went through to finally overcome this scenario.

If this were put into practice then I think this would help to better reflect the real experiences of each group and make things a little more tense and difficult.

I would apply this rule to ALL replays, including any attempts to buff up miserable scores.

Any thoughts?

People tried to "buff up" miserable scores? Seriously? The only times we replayed scenarios was a) when an investigator was devoured and we wanted to keep them alive for future scenarios or b) we lost the scenario. We played the Abhoth scenario 4 times -- twice with TPKs -- before we succeeded with no investigator loses (and even that was a close game, lasting nearly 4 hours). We never really worried about points, we just played to survive.

sulphurea said:

Generally, I think that's a great idea, a score penalty for replays.

Although I think that a half score penalty is overdoing it. Perhaps a five point reduction for every player in the team. One player team loses five points for a replay, a two player team ten points, a three player team fifteen points. Or perhaps a ten point reduction with an additional rule that a team can not lose more than half their score (that would prevent large teams from pulling zeroes, but at the same time, well, I think it would keep the game much more tense— I was bored out of my mind initially by squatting for points, which is why I quit the league at round three to replay it on my own unofficially with a small mostly randomly selected team without replays).

You should add this to the League suggestion thread at the top of the forum.

Nice idea but in practice that is never going to work. Players might just wait until the deadline and keep replaying it themselves, then only submit the best score without the penalty.

For me anything than adds any more tension to the game has to be a good thing. The point of the game and the League is to play it and enjoy it, win or lose, isn’t it? The thought of any group replaying again and again until they get “good” score worthy of their egos and only then submitting it is a disturbing thought. Surely such insecure individuals would just cheat anyway.

Remember what Buddha said when encountering a group of people heatedly arguing about who had notched up the greatest number of points in the game they were playing:

“Any man who cares more about their score than the playing of the game is missing the point, not only of the game, but more than likely of life itself.”

OM

An interesting suggestion but one that, ultimately, I feel will be impractical.

I don't think any score penalty is appropriate, but I think that the number of times played should be reported and hopefully published. It would give a nice hint as to how many games the other teams are playing and an additional comparison to how sucessful everyone is.

I don't think the scoring rules are good period. It actively encourages you to drag out the game in order to allow more monsters into town so you can take their trophies. It sends the wrong message.

Whatever scoring method you use, the game will encourage certain behavior. I don't find "playing until you win" to be the kind of behavior that needs to be discouraged, but I do find actively avoiding sealing the Ancient One to be disasteful.

-Frank

Argonel said:

That's an excellent idea.

We thought of replaying our worst scores - instead of just the TPKs - and I can't find anything wrong with playing a scenario again to get more points. Not sure how someone can compare that to cheating by sending in faked scores?

trouble is as soon as you introduce scoring then points do matter and getting more than someone else is important to some people.

i would never have knowingly let the game continue on to get more points, but it did influence my choices sometimes.

A short deadline for submitting results after publication would stop too much replaying?

tamsyn said:

No. You can play several games in a day if youhave the time. However, when many of us have deadlines and science to do there's often a delay of several days or even weeks before we can get the group together.

So a short time limit would make it so that some groups could still play over and over again, while other groups couldn't play at all.

-Frank

I think that Argonel’s suggestion of submitting and having published the number of replays for each scenario is a really good one. I like the game as grim and challenging as I can get it and that is why my mind naturally turns to thoughts of penalties for replays, but Argonel’s suggestion would help enrich the results and offer the added opportunity for groups to prove their greatness by making it through with the minimum number of replays.

Sorry can’t help myself. What about the number of replays being factored into determining a group’s final score by means of some arcane formula?

... and Crimson if you follow the thread I wasn’t comparing people replaying scenarios for a better score as cheats, I was just responding to Tamsyn’s sage comment that some people would cheat their way around my proposed Draconian strictures. Indeed I have a confession to make, but you must promise not to tell or mention it again: my group replayed scenario 1 just for a more handsome score.

sulphurea said:

Must have missed that for some reason, no offense meant!

Frankly, I'd rather that we just did Golf Scores: number of turns to complete a mission is your score and the lowest score is the best.

If it takes you more than one game, then those are counted as extra turns. Probably a fixed number of extra turns to avoid people forfeiting games that they didn't think they were going to win.

-Frank

Argonel said:

That's a great idea!

Frank said:

I use an alternative scoring system for that reason, nut I can't compare my results with everyone else.

well the scoring system is up and doesnt include any of these things. ah well. I think they are all good ideas but too hard to enforce/easy to skirt around.