Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I am currently looking to propose a tournament to my local gaming store, and one of the main issues that came up was that Warhammer 40k is not a win/loss game. It is a win/loss/tie game. I am trying to make it a single elimination tournament (aka start with 32 people, next round we will have 16, then 8, then 4, then 2, then one winner) But this requires that all games do not end in a tie.

Is there any way this would be possible?

Here are some of the ideas that i have thought of:
By making tertiary objectives that would only come into play if the game ended, and must be awarded to one of the two players. But then i get stuck on what these tertiary objectives would be.

By making it so that if the game ended and it was a tie, it would go into"overtime" and the players would just play another turn. If the next turn ended in a tie it would keep going into another turn until the tie was resolved. I'm not sure if this would be the best idea though, but it is one.

Any ideas that you guys have? Please if you have had a similar situation to this, let me know.

Thanks,
Thisisnotpancho

If you ran the rounds as:

1: Big Guns
2: Crusade (5 Objectives)
3: The Scouring
4: The Emperor's Will
5: Relic

Then you could always use Purge the Alien as the tie-breaker (ie if the mission is drawn, then he with the most kill points wins).

In the unlikely - but possible - event that that results in a tie too then fight a single challenge between any surviving characters (not just independent characters) of the owning players' choice.

In the event they die simultaneously, give the win to the player who had the cheapest model involved in the challenge.

The NOVA Open and Battle For Salvation GTs do W/L like you're talking about. You should check out their sites and their scenarios/structure.

Yeah i looked at the NOVA Open and Battle for Salvation GT and saw that they did a similar thing to the purge the alien tiebreaker. Both of their tiebreakers were the number of points that each played destroyed during the game. So I figure that could work even if the game type is purge the alien. It sounds pretty good, i think i will stick with that. Thanks for the answers

thisisnotpancho

Couple of things. Im interested in what you propose to do with the players you eliminate. Especially the first 16 players eliminated in round #1. I think you might find a single elimination tournament a tough sell once your player base realizes that they can show up play 1 game and then be done for the day.

But with this said let me expaiin a "simple" win/loss scenario.

In the BFS and NOVA there are 3 main missions. KP+3, Quarters,Objectives. All of the missions are in play each round as a primary, secondary and tertiary.

The secondary book missions(kill the Warlord,line breaker, ect) are also added as Tie breakers.

However The Ultimate tie breaker added is pure Victory Points.
Nova requres for there scoring matrix that you talley VP at the end of each game regardless. BFS only requires you do it if VP is necessary to break a tie.
Either way is fine.

So there is always a win/loss and no ties.

Your missions however dont have to be the ones we use you can either use book ones or make them up yourself.

At the BFS for our 1 day tournaments we use a variant of the above and do a 3-4 round "Battle point tournament"

Also of note we have moved away from the single elimination tournament for our GT this year and gone to a 6 round 2 day Tournament where everyone plays all games.

Ed Miller
BFS T.O.

You can have an elimination game and still let everyone play 5 games. Just have a draw amongst those knocked out each round for them to play off against each other and have a 'best loser' prize for the loser who has won most games against other losers (or something of that sort). You could even if you liked have a more complicated arrangement where the losers of round one are drawn against each other and then the winners amongst them in the second game go on to play those who won their first game but lost their second whilst those with two straight losses playe each other and so on (easier to do than to explain).

Well we will have a "best overall" and "best painted" prize that everyone is still eligible for. The records of the people who lose the first round will still count towards their best overall score, so they are encouraged to do well in their remaining 4 games. Does this sound like a fair and viable tournament system? This is afterall, my first tournament that i am setting up, so all comments will be welcomed.

Neil G. of the 11th Company also has a software he developed that automatically manages a NOVA-formatted tournament (or a BAO style one I think too).

It'll tackle pairings and elim for Best General (your 5-0 in a 32-man tourney, or possibly a 4-1 if you have between 17 and 31).

It'll also take in paint scores for determining Best Overall, and Best Appearance. If you follow the system entirely (honestly you should do whatever you're comfortable with, up to and including changing any and all parts of systems that you borrow), you would do best overall as 50% appearance, 50% competitive. This'll give even 3-2 type finishers a legitimate opportunity to win Best Overall in spite of not going undefeated. It's an important part of the "NOVA" format that's been mentioned (and is used at NOVA, BFS, Bugeater, 11th Co, Indy Open, etc., in various hybridizations) - it's NOT an elimination format, because the actual overall winner can stay in it through multiple losses if they've put forth the effort on their appearance scores.

If you have only a 3-round-ish tournament, or not enough time to go through full elimination, there's also nothing wrong with using a more traditional margin of victory type format, where ties or not, the winner is the person who accumulates the highest margin of victory throughout the limited # of rounds you have. You can simultaneously alleviate the "pain" of awarding to one among many undefeated players by having small prizes or medals for those who go undefeated without maxing their points, to offset potential hurt feelings due to running into tougher match-ups.

Rambling $.02

Yeah, i was hoping to have 32 players, and it looks like that will just be about the number we will have based off of players that have showed interest so far. But i was thinking a 33% rating for each record, sportsmanship, and painting. They will each be on a scale of 15 points. For the record scale, each win is 3 points, each loss is 0. So the max is 15, but even if you get out in the first round, you are still able to get up to twelve points. After that a number of judges will rate your army (i'm thinking like 3 judges) on a scale from 0-15. 0 being not painted, and 15 being the best army they have ever seen. Then these number of scores will be averaged to give you an average paint score out of 15.

Then sportsmanship will be tackled this way: after each game, each player will fill out a notecard. The notecard will be simple, like this:

Please fill out and hand to the judges before your next match

Your opponents full name__________________________________

Your opponents sportmanship (Circle one)
0 1 2 3 4 5

0 is very low, 2-3 is moderate, and 5 is high

So there will be a total of 5 sportsmanship scores, and they will be averaged, going to the second decimal place for accuracy.(4.55 for example) Once these are averaged, they will be multiplied by 3, so that the average score will be on a scale of 0-15.


That way at the end of the tournament each player will have a score in each of these categories. They will be added up and the player with the highest total wins best overall. The highest score a person could get would be a 45/45 while the lowest score a person could get would be a 0/45. Each area (record, sportsmanship, painting) will be weighted the same towards this overall prize; they will each be on a scale of 0-15.

What do you guys think? Do you think that this is a good system? I believe that it makes you want to compete even after you have lost the main tournament, because you only get 3 points off out of 45 if you are out of the main tournament. I believe that this makes it a fair tournament and balances all of the categories nicely, so you will want to do well in all of them, and don't just "quit" once you have lost your first game

Do you think that this is a good system?

Honestly, I think it's overcomplicated.

i never really see how scoring for sportsmanship on a scale works beyond a bad - typical - good and the whole thing's pretty subjective anyway and often can be dependent not just on my opponent but on other factors (for instance I could face three great guys but one game is for nebulous reasons a bit poor. the chap I'm facing is a nice chap and a good sport but my feeling about the game is probably tinged a bit by factors beyond his control and so I might rate him lower than he deserved.

But also if I face 5 blokes and I'm a harsher scorer on the sportsman scale (ie I regard 15 as a living saint and so perhaps think a typical good sport probably merits a 9 or 10 on a 15 points scale, suppose other people are generally rating higher? The people I face will be disadvantaged by my stinginess as although I may rate them fairly against each other, I have no way of rating them against the other 26 people I did not face). I'd just rather I had to pick my favourite opponent of the day, which is often hard enough.

As for painting, again I think it's too subjective. if I'm asked to pick the army I like best then I can do that easier than wondering whether the orks I faced should maybe have been rated a 9 on painting when i have absolutely no basis for that beyond '9 is a bit better than average').

GW UK actually does it best in their Throne of Skulls tournaments I think: you have a best player prize for each codex entry, an overall winner, best painted and favourite opponent prizes. In fairness they have well over 100 players, but things are pretty simple to judge and the very subjective painting and sporting scores don't interfere with the gaming scores at all.

Yeah i could see how sporting scores could be affected. I'm not sure how to work that out.

But the painting wouldn't be as subjective, since we would have judges that aren't competing in the actual tournament judge them on a scale of 0-15, not other players. They would directly compare the armies in the quality of their painting.

Hm, do you think a system of thumbs up/thumbs down would work better? How do you propose we do the system of sportsmanship? or should we have one at all?

Well if everyone is playing 5 games then I think a separate sportsmanship prize where everyone just votes on their favourite opponent at the end of game 5 would probably be best. There's always the chance of a tie (but a tie-breaker in this case could be the one who lost the most games, as presumably if he kept being sporting in the face of many defeats he's shown more).

I really just don't like the idea of a painting score affecting the gaming score in any way. Keeping the things separate is best, I think. If you have 3 judges can't they just get their heads together and come to agreement on which army they think is best painted? (Or as I'd prefer 'best presented' because there's more to an army's aesthetic than just painting, i think -- though the way its painted is obviously the largest factor, but I've seen some beautifully painted armies with very uninspired (but well painted) basing, for instance.

 Blood and Slaughter wrote:
Well if everyone is playing 5 games then I think a separate sportsmanship prize where everyone just votes on their favourite opponent at the end of game 5 would probably be best. There's always the chance of a tie (but a tie-breaker in this case could be the one who lost the most games, as presumably if he kept being sporting in the face of many defeats he's shown more).

I really just don't like the idea of a painting score affecting the gaming score in any way. Keeping the things separate is best, I think. If you have 3 judges can't they just get their heads together and come to agreement on which army they think is best painted? (Or as I'd prefer 'best presented' because there's more to an army's aesthetic than just painting, i think -- though the way its painted is obviously the largest factor, but I've seen some beautifully painted armies with very uninspired (but well painted) basing, for instance.

I like the idea of judges selecting the best painted army, but how do you suggest we do the "overall prize"? and what do we do to keep the people interested in playing after they have lost?

I believe that a better refined idea for sportsmanship should go like this: At the end of the game you will give your opponent a thumbs up or thumbs down. Thumbs down if he is an awful player, thumbs up if he was okay to good. Each thumbs up will be worth 3 points, each thumbs down will be worth 0. So at the end, if you were a good sport, you could win up to 15 points, if you were an awful sport you would get 0.

This would keep the sportsmanship less subjective and more black and white. What do you think?


Edit
And keep in mind that the "best overall" would only get like 25% of the pot, while the grand champion would get like 50%. (best painted gets 25%). That way there could be a completely separate prize for record, a.k.a. the only subjective part would be for the best overall

Do you need an overall prize?

Why not just have prizes for:

Most Popular Opponent (ie best sport, chosen on number of votes received from 5 opponents with 'lost most games' as the tie break)

Best Presented Army (chosen by the panel of 3 judges after discussion amongst themselves)

Tournament Champion (he who wins the final)

Give a Prize for the player who wins biggest in each round.

So:

Top Gun
Champion Crusader
The Scourge of the Enemy
Embodiment of the Emperor's Will
Keeper of the Holy Relics

(assuming you ran the 5 book missions witb purge tiebreaking). That means everyone has something to play for every game.

Personally speaking, I'd split the prize moneyt thus:

Most Popular Opponent: 25%
Best Presented Army: 25%
Tournament Champion: 25%
and the 5% for the winner of each round (in terms of points scored, not differential)

Oh, I'd also not allow anyone to win more than one prize so that out of 32 players, you'd have 8 prizewinners

What do you mean win every round?

And i was thinking, but of course this isn't final, that i would like to include purge the alien in the missions and just have all of the game types be random, and the tiebreaker be who killed the most points of their opponents army.

And i'm not so sure about the sportsmanship award. It hard to give a prize solely on which guy the opponents think was the nicest, because i think a tie will most likely happen. And if a tie happens, will the tiebreaker be who lost the most games? Because i think that encourages people to lose more after they have lost once, and it loses the competitive edge.

And what would motivate the other players once they get out of the tournament? (if they lost in the first round?) They wouldn't be motivated to win, but more likely to lose, because the tiebreaker for sportsmanship would go to the one who lost the most.

Let me know what you think

because i think a tie will most likely happen

I'm not so sure about that. But if it did you could always split the prize if you didn't want a tie-break (or just not announce that the tie break was most losses until all the games were done).

What I mean by win each round is this:

Suppose you have Relic fixed as game 6. Everyone's playing Relic with purge as the tie break. The top table is also playing. Let;'s say their game ends 4-2. But on another table someone wins 6-1. Obviously 6 VPs is better than 4 so that player would win that round and get the prize (assuming nobody else got 6 or more VPs). See what I mean?

I know the format I'm suggesting is uncommon but I've played in three tournaments where best sport has been decided in that way as a spearate prize, there's never been a tie-break (though to be fair, 3 is a very small sample size).

I also think that if one's aim is to encourage sportsmanship and fielding well painted armies then they should be as important prize-wise as gaming ability and that the three things should be three separate prizes. The 'round' prizes would just be little sweetners so more folk got to take at least something away with them (even if it was only their entrance money in value).

In the end of course it's entirely up to you and I hope it goes really well for you and your players.

Thanks, Although i do like the idea a lot, I am leaning towards no set missions. I also am leaning towards a simple distribution of the pot, but that may change with time, as may anything else. Thanks for your input, it really helped!