OK, everyone ... back to the project, and a chance to go inside the mind of the designer as we start talking about the timing system for the new outdoor game ...
Wait, we're talking timing first?? What about charts, tables, rules, etc.? Well, if my mind worked the way yours does, we might be talking about those other things first. However, I prefer dealing with the oddities of a gaming system before we start on the nuts and bolts.
For example, every football game has you call an offensive play and then a defensive play. The interactions of those plays determine the outcome. Not much time is needed, then, to work on the "basics" of how a tabletop football game plays. And the charts for the new game are being based on those from W2W, and will be adjusted for the outdoor game based on the data I'm crunching at the moment.
So, there's not too much to do in the way of the normal play charts. At least not right now. We'll work on those later as 90% of the work on them is already done. For now, the timing system has intrigued me the most, so the timing system is what I work on until I get about 90% of that down "cold". Then, we'll move on to something else.
However, the timing system could be the lynchpin to the whole feel, both from a game flow and a strategic standpoint. And that has me really excited to tinker with the timing system.
Let me digress for a minute ... the stuff I'm about to talk about is bound to get folks scratching their heads, and some may even go so far as to say, "geez, this sounds like it's gonna be too much extra effort ... I'm outta here". Before you go, take a minute to hear the designer's side of the story:
Designers understand that the games you already enjoy have a lot of similarities, and those similarities help you "transition" from one game system to the next with a minimum of re-learning concepts. The whole play-calling routine is pretty much the same in every tabletop football game, and therefore, you need not learn something new in that regard with every new game purchase.
But I like thinking outside the proverbial box. I want to give you, the gamer, something new and different to chew on, while retaining the flavor of other games you know. Kinda like serving you steak, or serving you steak with a slathering of garlic steak butter ... the base flavor is the same, but the steak butter adds a layer of flavor that you might enjoy even more.
For you, the gamer, the most open of minds is necessary for you to accept and enjoy anything that falls outside your customary comfort zone. Sometimes, it's exactly like the Dr. Seuss book, "Green Eggs And Ham" ... gamers simply won't try something new, but those who finally give in discover there was nothing to worry about in the first place. With this timing system, I'm sure many will, like the character in the book, refuse to try the game because of the system. It's my hope they'll read enough positives about it that they give it a try ... you DO like the timing system, Sam-I-Am!
OK, back to design thought ...
When you break down a team's play-by-play, you discover some constants, and surprisingly, the one constant in every style of offense is the time spent in the huddle. Teams practice their play-calling down to the second in terms of how quickly they want the team to huddle up, how long it takes to get the play call in from the sideline, how long it takes to communicate the play and snap count, how long it takes to line up, how long the QB has to read the defense, and then get the ball snapped.
The variable on every play is, of course, the length of the actual play, which is a function of play type and yards gained. A pass play gaining 25 yards takes less time than a running play gaining the same distance. An incompletion may take five seconds off the clock; a running play stuffed at the line might take the same amount of time.
So, with this timing system, we must look for simplicity as well as what others call "game memory"; that is, how quickly can you memorize certain results from charts and how does that speed up your game play. Any timing system that folks want needs to address both.
How to do this? Well, you have to take a leap of faith and say that one 15-yard run off-tackle is the same as all others, and every 70-yard pass play is the same as all the others. We do this, even though we know that some 15-yard runs are the result of busted plays that took a long time to develop as the back picked a hole after reversing field, because it allows us to abstract and simplify for the purpose of meeting both simplicity and game memory.
Once we make a determination of how many seconds each length of play takes (and we can detail this out to distances on any kind of play, from returns to punts, field goals to incomplete passes, and so on), we then add that play result to some constant time that represents the time in the huddle for the play call.
And therein lies the rub ... how many seconds for the huddle and play call? If you look at any NFL game, you can find huddle times anywhere between five (hurry-up) and thirty seconds (clock kill). And then, the data sometimes "lies" to you. See if you can guess which of these four teams from 2013 (Philadelphia, Denver, Baltimore, and New England) matches with the data in the following table (includes playoff games):
REGULAR HUDDLE NO HUDDLE
366 plays, 21.81 sec/play 744 plays, 23.26 sec/play
1140 plays, 24.76 sec/play 127 plays, 21.41 sec/play
696 plays, 24.89 sec/play 393 plays, 24.77 sec/play
699 plays, 24.15 sec/play 661 plays, 25.00 sec/play
Did you take a legitimate guess? OK, in order, the teams are: Philadelphia, New England, Baltimore, and Denver. Would you have guessed that Chip Kelly's teams run their "regular" plays faster than their no-huddle plays? Or that New England uses the no-huddle far less than you might have guessed? Or that Baltimore's average time per play is almost the same, regardless of how they huddle up?
So, even when we think we know ... we don't. How does this factor into a timing system that we want to be as realistic, simple, and easily committed to memory as possible? We reach back into that bag of tricks known as "abstraction" to solve this particular problem.
For those who haven't heard me talk about this before, abstraction is the "art" of making some general assumptions about the way the world works, and then using those assumptions to build a model around. For example, if we didn't have individual kicker stats, but knew that kickers make 99% of their extra point attempts, we could give each kicker a rating that would net them 99% of their attempts, even though some may not have missed any that year. The abstraction allows the total stats to be correct (and "feel" correct), even if individual kickers may not be spot-on at season's end.
We can do this with timing. We know that few teams use all 40 seconds of the play clock (25 when the criteria are met), and yet, may get called for delay of game (which happened 153 times in the 2013 season, including playoffs). We also know that, with the exception of the two-minute hurry-up, few teams use less than ten seconds off either play clock.
So, we can create a few, basic "huddle times" that act as the "base time" for each play, based on specific criteria. For example:
Huddle Times, Clock Running
Normal Offensive Speed: 30 (40) / 18 (25)
No-Huddle Speed: 20 (40) / 12 (25)
Hurry-Up Speed (under two minutes): 10 (40) / 10 (25)
Now, that may be over-simplifying things a bit. And playtesting will help determine the optimum huddle speeds with a running clock. But these feel right, and maybe they seem right to you, as well. In 2013, here's the breakdown of plays by time expired between snaps:
36 seconds or more: 12,516
27-35 seconds: 8,198
11-26 seconds: 6,420
10 seconds or less: 17,685
This data certainly points to a potential adjustment in the base huddle times, but, again, playtesting will sort all of that out in the end.
What will happen is that the base time will be added to the time of the actual play to arrive at the number of seconds to "tick" off the clock. What this means is that there may be all sorts of end-game scenarios where you, the gamer and coach, have, say, nine seconds left instead of the traditional last half-play. Can you squeeze in a short, sideline pass with no timeouts left and still have a second or two left to bring on the field goal unit for a winning kick? Or, does the receiver, losing his mind for a moment, sprint into the clear for a gain that takes those final nine seconds off the clock, costing you the game?
The new timing system also simplifies the whole concept of the time out. In every other football game, you usually spend a half-play or so to take a time out. Not so here. Soon as you know the time deduction, you can immediately call time so that you don't pay the huddle time for the next play. All you pay for is the time it takes to run the play itself. So, whereas another game, with a half-play left, gives you that last half-play due to a time-out ... we'll let you call time with 16 seconds left, use 6 for the play, leaving you ten with which to work.
I believe you'll be dealing with the same clock management issues that face every real-life coach: down in the score, no way to stop the clock ... how do you get from here to there with the precious few seconds you have?
More to come on this, and other stuff ...
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