There’s been some talk on Spielfrieks about tournament scoring systems. Paul Sauberer suggested awarding chances at prize draw, instead of ranking points. Now that’s a neat idea! It could be worth using sometimes. Paul’s idea of five chances for winner with some bonuses for the length of games sounds good, too. That way winning every game, with any number of players, would be good, but longer and heavier games could give few more chances to everyone.
I’d like to award chances for other players than winners, too… Perhaps something like five chances for the winner, two chances for the second place and one for third. In two-player games, only winner scores. Each beginning hour of length awards extra chance to everyone, maybe?
Thus, a typical two-player game would give a player five or zero chances (expected value 2.5). A 90-minute four-player game would award six chances to winner, three for second place, two for third place and one for fourth place (expected value 3). Two-hour five-player game would give seven, four, three, two, two, with an expected value of 3.6 or so. One-hour five-player game has an expected value of 2.6… That sounds pretty good, I think. The longer games offer more chances to everyone, so they are worth playing. Removing the third-place extra bonus in four-player games might be a good idea to balance it a bit.
Then, in the end of the event, prizes are drawn. Those, who have played most and succeeded best (it’s good when system like this favours those who play a lot) have best chances to win prizes, but everyone who has played even some games will have a chance (I’d award one chance for everyone just for coming, so everyone can win). Of course, if several prizes are awarded, it’s probably a good idea to only allow each player to win only one prize.
2 responses to “Tournament scoring system”
I remember a discussion on Spielfrieks some time ago about the game “Killer Bunnies and the Quest for the Magic Carrot.” It’s a game about proliferating your bunnies, and wiping out your opponents’ bunnies, all for the purpose of getting carrots. At the end of the game, a number is drawn, and whoever owns that numbered carrot wins the game. I seem to remember that it was panned by a fair number of folks on the list.
This chance at a prize draw sounds an awful lot like Killer Bunnies.
Yes, it’s essentially the same thing. But of course, what works as an event prize draw mechanism isn’t necessarily a good mechanic to decide the winner of a game. I think it’s slightly too random to be fun (but of course it is a fun way to make sure everyone has a chance to win the game, while the better players have a better chance — actually, come to think of it, I think it might work, if done properly.)