Hey everyone, Reecius here just throwing out some ideas that have been bouncing around my noggin about potential format ideas going forward into this brave new world of gaming! Just to be clear, this is only a discussion for a hypothetical format, not an actual plan.
The times, they are-a-changin! That is OK, change is often scary at first and good in the end.
So, we find ourselves in a situation where we have lots of cool new games to play, and the mainstay game that we love the most here (40K) has really changed and continues to do so! Rumors of 7th ed? Dogs and Cats living together? Huh?
These silly tabletop games that we play are community driven. What I mean by that is that unlike a video game (and the main reason I prefer table top games) is that in order to play, you need friends to play with. Organized cons and events have sprung up all over the place and with the example set by leaders such as Adepticon, GenCon, etc. we see how big these things can grow and how much fun they can be! Our vision for our events such as the Las Vegas Open, Bay Area Open, etc. is to grow into a network of super fun, community driven events that people look forward to all year! We also want them to be a platform that lots of games can plug into where we do the crappy part of admin, finance, promotions, etc. and passionate gamers can come in and run awesome events for their communities.
To that end, Frankie and I have been discussing the idea of running 2-6, 1 day 40K events with different formats. You could play in your choice of event each day and then your choice day 2 and on (or not play the second day).
Each event would be self-contained, and a tournament unto itself. However, each event would also yield “con points,” perhaps by adding up your battle points for each round of play as a hypothetical idea. Then, you add up the accumulated con points to determine the event “winner.” You could even have traditional multi-day events wherein players that lose in the “competitive” format events do not go on to subsequent days. Each tournament would be a contained event, players would be ranked according to how they did that day, and then would “start over” so to speak each subsequent tournament. That way you could still have a tournament champion, Swiss style. Those players simply keep going on in rounds until they lose or are the last gamer standing! Those that fail to qualify are not obligated to keep playing and can instead jump into a different format event or play another game entirely.
The benefit to this is that you could run say, Escalation included events so people can use their super heavies. You could also run say, a no allies event where folks can only use a single codex. You could also run a narrative event, kill teams, doubles event, etc., etc. that would appeal to a wider range of hobbyists. If each event was weighted equally, then folks could do what they liked and have a variety of events to participate in. It also mitigates the bummer feeling of losing a game day 1, and playing day 2 knowing that you are out of the running.
It also may appeal to more people if they can only come for a single day instead of having to commit to multiple days. If you can only get away for a day, this means you can still come out and play and be in an event that is self-contained. The cool thing is that we really wouldn’t even have to change our format, either. The BAO format actually works quite well as a Battle Points or Swiss format event.
The downside is that this would dilute the prize pool. The upside to that downside though (haha, confused yet?) is that more people would get prizes, they would simply not be as big.
Here’s an example, hypothetical schedule. A player would be able to play in any of the 1 day events, the “main” event is a series of 3 unique events, but getting into events 2 and 3 are open to qualifiers only.
Friday:
- Competitive 40K Tournament 1
- 40K Narrative Campaign
- 40K Kill Teams
- Warmahordes Tournament 1
- Drop Zone Commander
- Infinity
Saturday:
- Competitive 40K tournament 2 for qualifiers only.
- Doubles 40K
- Escalation Tournament
- Warmahordes Tournament 2
- Pathfinder Society
- Warhammer Fantasy Tournament 1
- X-Wing
Sunday:
- Competitive 40K Tournament 3 for qualifiers only.
- Apoc
- No allies 40K tournament
- Warmahordes Tournament 3
- Deep Wars demos
- Warhammer Fantasy Tournament 2
- Whatever game of choice.
What do you guys and gals think about this? Would this sound like fun? More variety? This also means you could play in events for other games, such as Warmahordes, Drop Zone Commander, etc. and not be committed to 40K (or whatever game) the entire time.
Let us know your thoughts, please.