Fantasy Sports: The Geek Game for Sports Geeks

The NFL season kicks off this week and millions of rabid fans are not only excited to watch their favorite team start the journey towards the coveted Vince Lombardi trophy; but many of them will be keeping a watchful eye on their fantasy football rosters in the annual pursuit of a fantasy football league championship.

Each year, millions of people play fantasy football. These obsessive players spend hours pouring over stats, projections, and injury reports in hopes to put together the best possible combination of football players that can give them the highest number of fantasy points each week. These sports geeks will tweak their rosters and make adjustments based on injuries, bye weeks, and their next opponent. During the season, these fantasy team owners get together, watch games, talk smack, and burn up their league web forums and emails with gloats and excuses for what might have been. For many, fantasy football is an escape, a hobby, a social event; but in the end they all do it just for the fun of it.

In a way, fantasy sports players are no different than gamers. Both groups have an obsession and passion for what they do, and even the game of fantasy sports mimics game genres common to many table top games, specifically role playing games and miniature war games. Let me show you how.

Role Playing Games

Role Playing Games (RPGs) are all about creating a character you care about and building that character over the course of many play sessions. In the same way, fantasy sport team owners create teams for football, baseball, basketball, hockey and other sports that they will build over a season and sometimes multiple years. Owners give their team a name and a logo that will be identified with that owner over the course of the season. Many owners use the same name across multiple leagues helping to develop their persona that is used over the course of many years. For example, I have a fantasy baseball team that has used the name Crotch Scratchers since the mid-90′s. Over the course of those many years, I’ve won six championships and now the Crotch Scratchers have built a solid competitive reputation.

Every RPG has a game master that is responsible for running the game, keeping the players on track, and making sure they provide an experience that keep players coming back to their games. Likewise, every fantasy sports league has a commissioner who is responsible for setting up the league rules, scheduling drafts, making sure the game runs smoothly during the season, and keeping owners happy so they will want to return the next season. In a RPG, if the game master is inflexible, stubborn or a control freak, there is a good chance people might not be interested in sitting in on another game with them. Likewise, if a commissioner is overly controlling, inflexible, does not take feedback from the owners, and runs a league with an iron fist, then owners will gladly look for another league to participate in.

In the end, the real draw of RPGs for gamers is the social aspect. Friends getting together, sitting around the table for hours with their books and character sheets, laughing, eating junk food and just enjoying each others company. For fantasy sports players, the biggest day of the season is draft day. All the owners get together in one place, sit around a table for hours with their laptops, magazine and stat pages, laughing at other people’s picks, and eating junk food. Owners really enjoy this special gathering at the beginning of the season where all the league members get together in one place with the common goal of building a team to dominate the league.

Miniature War Games

When it comes to actual game play, fantasy sports is a lot like miniature war games. In miniature games, such as Warmachine and Warhammer 40k, a player has many options to choose from when building their army. They will spend hours reading faction books, codexes, gaming sites, and forums in order to find the units that makes the most sense in the army they are trying build. Likewise, fantasy sports players spend hours reading fantasy magazines, sports sites, and forums in order to find the best players to make their team the most competitive it can be. In miniature games, there is always varied opinions regarding which factions and units are the best. Likewise, all the sports “experts” have varying opinions on which players will perform the best. But in both cases, the gamer and team owner must make a reasonable decision based on all the data they have collected.

In miniature games, as you play games with other people, you start to tweak your armies. You remove units in favor of others or change units based on your opponent. In fantasy sports, as games are played and the season progresses, owners drop, add, or trade players in order to make the team even more competitive. In both situations, it’s an ongoing process of constantly reevaluating and adjusting the lineup in order to get the best results.

Periodically, a gaming company will release new units for miniature games. When this happens, players scour the internet looking for information on the units, their stats, and then develop strategies on how to take advantage of those new units, or crush them. Likewise, every year new players join the league and fantasy sports owners scour the internet looking for information on the players, their stats, and then develop strategies on how to take advantage of those new players, both their strengths and their weaknesses. It’s on going process of research and evaluation even when you aren’t playing the game.

There is one major difference between miniature war games and fantasy sports. When you play a miniatures game, your opponent directly affects how you play and the decisions you make. In head-to-head fantasy sports leagues, your team doesn’t physically play against the other team nor do the players on a the fantasy team really affect each other. It’s strictly comes down to the cumulative stats that are collected during the games. So with fantasy sports, while the actual games are played, owners just sit back and watch to see if they made the right decisions. While for miniature games, the most important decisions are actually made while playing the game.

A subtle but huge difference.

Conclusion

Personally, I consider myself a gaming geek and a sports geek. I’m obsessive about all things gaming and have been since a very young age. Likewise, I’ve played and watched sports all my life and am very passionate about my favorite teams. In both, fantasy sports and tabletop gaming, it’s all about the fun and the social aspect that I love. That’s what keeps bringing me back to the game table and draft room. I have many gaming friends that care nothing about fantasy sport leagues and I have many sports friends that care nothing about RPGs or miniatures.

Just don’t realize how alike they are. Geeks are geeks.

Origins 2012 Trip Report

I thought it might be interesting if I wrote down some thoughts about musing about mine and Tony McRee's trip to Origins. I'll do my best to keep this from being too wordy.

We arrived Wednesday afternoon and checked into the Hampton Inn. Very nice hotel and right across the street from the convention center.  We went into the convention center and got our badges without any issues. No lines and the volunteers were very friendly.

That night we had our first event, an RPG. We play a scenario using the Dark Heresy rule system. Now I'm a fan of the 40k universe and I know a little about it due to various games and books that my son reads. I also like somewhat 'crunchy' RPG systems and this has a good feel to it. The guys we played with were pretty good and so was the GM. We used pre-made characters and I got stuck with one I really didn't enjoy nor could get into to gameplay. Tony, didn't know much about this universe nor was crazy about the system so I think I enjoyed it more than him.

The next day we checked out the exhibit hall. While a nice size it's a fraction of what's a GenCon which is good and bad. Bad in that there is less to see, good in that it isn't as overwhelming nor as crowded. We could demo and talk to any vendor with ease.

We signed up for a World of Warcraft TCG beginners tournament and ended up being the only two. So we ended up demoing a couple games with the Cryptozoic people instead. We played the Penny Arcade Deck Building Game (which we've played before) and Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards: Duel at Mt. Skullfyre. The game play of Penny Arcade is fun but the theme is rather dull. We asked about their new WoW deck building game and they said it uses some of the same mechanics so I'm looking forward to checking that out. The other game was really unique in its game play and we really liked it. It moved quick and was fun. But it is not family friendly. Very course language in the rulebook and the they go for the shock factor on the cards in title and art. It's something that would be fun with a group of guys and I hope they use that mechanic in other games.

We had our three hour painting class that afternoon. The focus of the class was to get your model ready for the table as quick as possible. It was somewhat of a speed painting type class. It's exactly what I was looking for and every useful. In the span of three hours we took one model from priming to finish. Knowing the techniques and doing it on my own, I could do it in way less time now. The instructor said he can usually finish one in 30 minutes. We went over color choices, basecoating, washing, highlighting and brush techniques. What I was so impressed with is that this guy's job is a commissioned miniatures painter and he's all about cheap and easy. Buy a decent red sable brush, use decent paint (Citadel, Reaper, P3, etc) and you're off. No fancy palettes needed, no expensive washes or additives. In fact we never watered down our paint. We took it straight out of the pot and used Reaper wash right out of the bottle for washing. For thinning paint he said use the good ole Future floor polish. Anything else is a waste of money. He said if you just want painted models to play the game, there's no need to spend so many hours painting for that. If you are painting for competition, well that's a different story. Next year he said he was going to do an intermediate class and I'll want to take it. He gave us his contact info, and we ran into him several time during the show and he was happy to answer our follow up questions.

That night Tony and I discovered the CABs Board Room. CABs is a local gaming club that sponsors a very large hall for checking out and playing games. For $20, anytime during the show you can check out one of their 1200 games. That $20 also includes a free game that is determined randomly, but no game is less than $20. I ended up with Pantheon  and Tony got Sylla. Also, several times during the day, if you have a game checked out, you get entered for a drawing for another game and from that Tony won Nitro Dice.

The great thing about the board room is being able to try so many games and talk with other gamers about their likes and dislikes. I had as much fun socializing with the people in there as I did playing. In fact, Friday night we ran across a couple guys that wanted to play 7 Wonders and we ended up chatting and play other games (Eminent Domain) until 3am. It was a lot fun.

On Friday, we had our Achievement Unlocked Warmachine/Tournament. There were 10/12 players and it was very laid back. It wasn't about winning or losing but about grabbing achievement points. I learned so much during those games. In fact, I played one guy who is mainly a Menite player and during our game, every move he told me how I should use my guys. This guy knew what he was talking about because he went on to win 3 tournaments that weekend. He was a genius. In the 35pt tourny he was finishing guys off in two rounds. There were no slouch players (ok, there was Tony and I). I did learn, I'll leave the big tournys to the big boys. The casual and achievement tournaments are more my speed.

Saturday we went to a game design class led the guy who designed Britannia. It was pretty interesting but he did more to discourage designing games than really charge you up. He says it requires a lot of work and a lot luck.

During the day we kept checking on the Warmachine tournaments. Tony and I made a couple friends and we enjoyed talking with them about the game. The highlight of all the demos I did was that afternoon.

We got to try Catalyst Labs new game, Leviathans. This game is set in an alternate universe where Tesla invented a device that could remove mass from materials. In the early 1900s, these devices were put aboard ships and now you have ships that fly. The models use a hex based system on a board and games are played through scenarios. It is a very tactical game where movement and positioning is critical. Players take alternating turns moving and shooting which means very little downtime. Combat is done through rolling 12 sided die, but the die are designed to have varying probabilities. For example, a 4 sided die is done by the 12 sided die have 1-4 printed 3 times over the twelves sides, a d6 is done by 1-6 being on the die twice, etc. When you do combat short range gives you higher valued dice, having crew members to help aim adds another die, etc. As you take damage you lose things like steering, movement, your crew, etc. While it sounds confusing, everything you need to know is on the ships card and the rules are pretty straight forward. It was on sale at the show for the first time and they only had 50 copies. They sold out in under 45 minutes. The production run starts in August and it's one I'll keep an eye on. Here are some pics of the core set and some of the ships (link)

Saturday night, it was back to the board room. And we got a nice surprise at 9pm. They had tons of games left over from the giveaway so they went around the room giving out more games so Tony and I each got another. As a result of that room, I got two free games and Tony got three. Well worth the price.

Sunday, we did a little shopping and we got on the road.

Well so much for not being wordy, but I can treat this as a diary entry and look back on it in the future. :-)

I had loads of fun and plan on taking the whole family next year.

LGG does the RPG

I'm fortunate to have a core group of friends to make up a local gaming group (LGG). Over the years we have played many different games...CCGs, board games, miniatures, card games. But one type of game we've never played together was the classic pen and paper RPG.

We had always talked about playing one, but there was never a consensus on the system we'd use, or who would want to dedicate their time to being a game master (GM). So, we never got around to doing one.

Now within my family we have done some very light RPGing. My sons bought the Dungeons and Dragons Red Box and we tried a couple scenarios of that. At Free RPG Day, we picked up Fantasy Flight Game's Deathwatch and we played a couple sessions of that. Then at GenCon last year we signed up to play the Hollow Earth RPG. So the family has dabbled in RPGs, some members of the LGG have dabbled in it...but never together as a group.

Well, thanks to Facebook, last year I reconnected with an old friend from High School who is gamer and into RPGs. He writes his own scenarios and GMs games using the Savage World system. He was more than happy to run a one shot scenario with our group so that we all could finally experience an RPG together.

So, this past weekend, the entire group came over ready to dive into a 4 hour scenario written by the GM. He brought pre-made starter characters so all we had to do was pick a character, get an overview of the game mechanics then start playing. The start was rather slow because we were learning as we go. But as time went on and we understand the game and our characters better, the pace picked and we really started enjoying ourselves. We had 8 players which is rather large for a RPG, but the GM did a great job of keeping the game moving and keeping us entertained.

The group dynamic was rather odd though because some people were role-playing their characters while others were just playing the game. I was one of those 'just playing the game' because I was so focused on the mechanics and strategy that I didn't allow myself to get immersed in the game. It's kind of like a MMO such as World of Warcraft. There is a story there to be played if you take time to read the text that the quest givers give you. But after a while you just start reading what needs to be done (ie. Kill 10 orcs), skip the text, click OK and go. The immersion is gone and then it just becomes a hack-n-slash.

Now that I understand the RPG genre a little better, the next time we play I'll embrace the character a little more. It will also help if we all 'roll' or create our character from scratch. That way you can create a character that is something you want to play and have more of a personal interest in.

RPGs have been around since the 70s and I wish I had gotten into this genre earlier. But it's never to late to learn something new and I look forward future RPGing with the LGG. Especially when the Iron Kingdoms RPG hits the shelves this summer. ;-)

1st Warmachine/Hordes Tourny (or why I like gaming)

This past Saturday I participated in my first public Warmachine/Hordes event. This was billed to be a Hordes Domination event which is promote the Hordes latest expansion. However, I'm a new player to the game and at this I only have one faction, the Protectorate of Menoth. But I still wanted to go learn more about the game. In addition,  my two sons (who also play) wanted to go and my local gamer friend, Geekly , was also going. So, off to the LGS we went.

Now this post isn't going to be about lists or the battle report because for non-Warmahordes players, that would be pretty boring. But instead what I want to talk about the are the other players in the tournament.

I'm a huge proponent of gaming (cards, boardgames, RPGs, minis) for the fun and social interaction with other people. Social media, online games, etc. are causing us to spend less face time with friends and family. Gaming forces people to sit across the table from each other and interact. This is a major appeal to all gamers. 

So when we got the store, we didn't know any of the other four players there. But each one of them immediately introduced themselves and welcomed us. When it was time to start the tournament, we had to inform the tournament organizer, that we only had 15pt armies and this was scheduled to be a 35pt tournament. Instead, of saying we can't play, every other player willingly without hesitation offered to play a 15pt tournament instead. Each of them had already built their lists (armies) but didn't mind at all doing another list for 15pts. This would allow me and my sons to play. Now with everyone's lists ready to go, we drew numbers to see who would face who. The tournament would consist of three rounds with the winner being the person with the best record.

So during the three rounds, we played people that had been playing this game for years. While we had a basic foundation of the rules there were many things we had questions about. Every person was very helpful taking time during the game to explain rules, strategies and gave us all the time we needed to make our moves. I had to play the guy who ended up winning the tournament and he was very helpful during our game. After we were done (and yes, he crushed me) he gladly took another 5 minutes to explain strategies that would help me in future games. Both my sons experienced the same thing with people they played against.

Speaking of my sons, my 15 and 9 year old were welcomed and treated like any other player. They were treated with respect and also offered help during games. In addition, everyone watched their language around my 9 year old which sounds like a small thing, but it shows a level of maturity that isn't seen much anymore.

After the tournament was over, we talked about the great time we had and we learned so much about the game. 

This is a typical example of the gaming community. Gamers love to talk to other players about the games, the rules, the strategies. That creates new relationships, builds the community and helps strengthen the hobby it self.

I try to do the same thing with other games I play. I take time to teach someone the rules, be patient with their questions, and provide advice during the game. I know by doing this, they will enjoy the experience and want to play again. It's not about the winning or losing, it's about shaking your opponents hand at the end of the game and thanking them for the enjoyable experience.

Ok, ok...for those who want to know. My 15pt list as the Protectorate of Menoth Battlebox plus the Choir of Menoth and Vassel of Menoth. I was 2-1, winning against Cryx and Legion and losing to Khador. And even though I didn't play a Hordes faction, because of my record I got this cool Trollbloods token

1st Time Play: Cosmic Encounters

In my hometown of Charlotte NC, there is a Meetup Group dedicated to strategy boardgames. A group of 20 or so will gather in a local restaurant and play games for a few hours. Typically 3-4 games are going at one time so there is always something of interest for everyone in attendance. At this particular meeting, Cosmic Encounters was one of the featured games and this was a game I've been wanting to try for awhile because it is very popular, well rated and the #1 game on The Dice Tower's Top 100 game list - 2011 Edition.

Cosmic Encounter is an old game compared to most popular strategy games out today. It was released in 1977 then picked up Fantasy Flight Games and re-released in 2008. At it's core, it's a Sci-Fi themed game where you represent an alien race whose goal it is to conquer planets. Three to five players (six with an expansion) get 5 planets and 20 ships to place on their planets (4 per planet). Each player gets a hand of cards that have numbers on then, or an 'N' (Negotiate cards) or artifact cards (which I'll cover later). During a players turn, the player will flip over a card in a separate deck that has a color on it. The color represents the player that is to be attacked. The attacking player takes up to 4 of his/her ships and moves them in front of one of the defenders planets. Now the attacking player can ask specific players if they want to help the attack. The defender can then ask players if they want to help to defend. One at a time, the players who were asked to help can dedicate up to four of their ships. If they were asked by both players to help, they must make a decision who to help or not help at all. Once all ally ships have been put into place for the attacker and defender, the attacking and defending players will then play a card from their hand face down on the table. At the same time, both cards are flipped over. The numbers on the card are added to the ships in the battle. If the attacker exceeds the defenders value then it inhabits a planet by placing a ship on it. The allies that joined the attacker also get to place a ship on the planet and inhabit it. If the defender wins, he keeps the planet and the allies that help defend get to draw cards equal to the number of ships they committed to defend. The losers in the battle must move their ships to a zone in the middle of the table. Those ships can no longer be used but at the beginning of a players turn, one ship can be reclaimed from the zone. If one of the players plays a Negotiate card, that means they are basically conceding the battle (waving the white flag). But if they do so, they get to randomly take 4 cards from the other players hand. If both players play Negotiate cards, it's a draw and they have a minute to negotiate an agreement such as trade cards, or agree to allow the other player occupy one of their planets. If no agreement is made, then each player loses three ships. The goal of the game? Be first player to inhabit 5 planets..


That's the rules in a nutshell. But like any good game, there is some mechanic to 'break' the basic rules. That is done by the alien race you play as. At the beginning of the game, each player gets two random alien race cards. The player picks one to be for the game. Each race has certain abilities such as The Pacifist, if they play a Negotiate card they automatically win the battle (unless the other player plays a Negotiate card then the standard rules apply). The Oracle, while in battle, the other player must play their card face up so you can see what it is. Other aliens earn special rewards if you win, keep allies from losing their ships. etc. Their are 50 alien races overall and even more in expansions. Another way to break rules is with the artifact cards which can be used during games to nullify a aliens ability, or nullify a card someone else plays.


So while the game is simple, the fun of the game comes in the player interaction. There is constant talk of who is going to help who. As one player takes a lead, others come to the aid of the defender to keep the leader from taking another planet. Or sometimes asking others to help defend could be bad because you don't want them to have any more cards. Or the attacker taking allies means giving other players planets. As a result, there is no player downtime. Every player can be involved in every turn.


The game can take 1-2 hours depending on how cutthroat the game becomes. But so much is going on, you don't even realize how much time has passed.


Another member of my smaller gaming group also played that night and we both agreed that for our group, this game could be a lot of fun. With so many alien races, each game will be different, thus the strategy will be different. I can see how The Dice Tower ranks this game so high year after year and I look forward to playing again.

My Most Anticipated Games of 2012

Each year there are a few games that I keep my eye and get excited about. While I'm sure there will be some more announced I haven't heard of, here are a few that are really sparking my interest.

First up is World of Warcraft: Clash of Champions. This game is from Cryptozoic, the publisher of the WoW TCG. When WoW TCG was first released by Upper Deck, I was heavy into it. I enjoyed the theme, the art, and most importantly the gameplay. However, as more and more sets kept coming out, I just couldn't keep up. It got to the point I was so many sets behind that I just put it aside. However, with Clash of Champions, this is a deck building game and not a collectible game. Everything you need is in one box and no need to buy anything else. I've come to really like the deck-building genre and WoW universe is very rich with lore and characters. This is a no-brainer buy for me.

At GenCon, I got the opportunity to test play Mage Wars. This is a card/board game where powerful mages face off against each on playing field broken into two rows of four squares. The appeal to me of this is that even though its a card game, there is no draw deck. All of your cards are in a book and you play card directly from that book. No luck involved when it comes to card draw. If you need it, you have it. The company has done a lot of playtesting at Cons over the past year and player feedback is very important to them. So I have high hopes for this game. Plus, I'm in one of their pictures on their website (Rock Em Sock Em Robot guy), so that's a bonus :-)

This past year I got into the miniature-battle game, Warmachine. One thing that drew me to that game was the lore. It is very steam-punkish with some magic mixed in. There are several warring factions in the Iron Kingdoms each with their own backstory and larger than life characters. The company that makes Warmachine, Privateer Press, recently announced they are releasing a new pen and paper RPG called Iron Kingdoms. I will admit that I never really got into RPGs because they were intimidating to me because of all the books and guides that exist. It just seemed like too much to buy and learn. With Iron Kingdoms, this will be a new system released with only one or two. So getting in on the ground floor of a game is less intimidating and will make the game easier to learn. Luckily, I have several other friends who are also interested in this IP so it won't be hard to find people to play with.


Those are the three main new properties I'm keeping an eye on this year. There will be some new expansions to some existing game I play that I will get. But I'll talk about those as the year goes on.


So what new games are you looking forward to?

1st Time Play: Mansions of Madness & Kingsburg

My brother-in-law's birthday was this weekend so he invited our family down to Augusta to have a gaming day. As a Arkham Horror fan, he was anxious to teach us Mansions of Madness and also wanted to show us a fun, lighter game called Kingsburg. First, Mansions of Madness.

After a lengthy game setup, four of us sat down to take on the roles of investigators to work together to play against the Keeper (a GM type role played by my brother-in-law). A tile map was assembled  for us to explore based upon a scenario and we needed to look for three clues to lead us to the objective we were trying to meet. The Keeper also has an objective and he has the advantage of knowing his objective and ours.


The game is basically moving around the different areas of map exploring, fighting monsters that the Keeper spawns against us and solving puzzles that are tile based puzzles such as putting together a picture or connecting tiles with wires on them from point A to point B to turn on the power that had been lost in a room. It is very much a co-op game with a lot of interactive between investigators as all of the investigators have different attributes. Some are better at fighting, some at solving puzzles, etc. Once you determine your objective, you are racing against the Keeper to finish the objective before he finishes his.


Even though the game took 2-3 hours, it moved very fast because there wasn't a lot of downtime. The interaction kept you involved with discussion and planning. And the overall game felt like a pen and paper RPG mixed with a boardgame (which is what I heard Fantasy Flight was going for). As such, I very much liked the game and look forward to playing it again.


Next, Kingsburg

Kingsburg is also from FFG. Even though it's been out for several years, I had never heard of it so I wasn't sure what to expect. It ended up being a medieval theme resource management game somewhat along the lines of Settlers of Catan with the Cities and Knights expansion. You have 5 turns with each turn being considered a year. Each year is split into 8 segments with 4 of those being seasons for harvesting resources and using resources to build buildings or train soldiers. There are too many buildings to list here but the buildings give you victory points (which is what you need to win the game) and bonuses within the game like bonuses to your soldiers, making buildings cheaper to build, etc. After the 5 turns the person with the most victory points wins.


Once again, I ended up liking this game too. It takes an 1 to 1.5 hours to play, the rules are easy to learn and there isn't a lot of downtime because some of the phases have all the players doing things at the same time. It definitely has a eurogame feel to it and I would consider this as a good gateway to non-gamers (much in the vein of Catan and Ticket To Ride).


I'll eventually do full reviews on these games and give scores for how the wife and boys felt about it. But I prefer to play games at least twice before doing a review.


I think we may need to start a tradition where on family birthday weekends we have gaming days. It's a great way to have fun with the family and learn some new games to boot. 

Welcome

Crit and Miss is blog dedicated to tabletop gaming. I will be providing reviews, news and discussions on various types of games including board games, card games, miniatures, and role-playing games.


While there are many other gaming blogs out on 'the webs', my focus will be from the point of view as a husband, parent and friend of gamers. As such I will focus more on using games to develop friendships and build relationships. With more and more people getting caught up in online social media, I want to do my part to make sure face to face time doesn't become passe.


If anyone would like to submit reviews of games to be posted on the site, feel free to contact me as I would like to have as many contributors as I can.


For more on my background, visit the About page for some more personal insight.