Wow! A whole month since the last post on the site. I'm going to have to get on that slacker Derek! C'mon man! Start pulling your weight! 😉
If anybody is still checking in here, this is what I have going on:
I have just recently completed my "Strat-O-Matic Basketball Rule Adjustments and Clarifications" document, that I will be putting up in the 'Files' section of this site soon. This is a two page document of, well, rule adjustments and clarifications, that I think Strat-O-Matic should make to the current (2014) rules booklet, if they where to release an up-to-date version in 2020.
To fully understand the rule changes and clarifications in this document, you will need to have a copy of the 2014 rules booklet, as this document simply lists changes and additions, that should be made to the most recent 2014 rules booklet.
As a supplement to this document, I will will also be posting a document explaining exactly why these rule adjustments, in my opinion, are necessary in the game.
Hi Chris,
ReplyDeleteI'm looking forward to seeing this. Sadly due to my frustration with the seeming inaccuracies with Strat I switched over to Replay Basketball 2 years ago. This was after fiddling around with home brewed rules for 12 years or so.
Cheers,
Mark
Mark, can you detail the inaccuracies you have found? Are you playing the Advanced game?
DeleteHi Derek, that list is vast..Ha! Yes, I played Advanced/ Super Advanced. Too many FGA and resulting points. Too few FTA, TO's and 3PTA's are the big ones. Too many FGA for good offensive rebounders on put backs. Too many offensive fouls is another one that bothered me. I was regularly having games where both teams would have over 100 FGA's, unfortunately the league or team average would be high 80's to low 90's but I couldn't get close to that..and I played 100's of games every year. I started removing a few fast action cards but that felt too contrived. Another issue I had, this was not playability was Strat only printing out 12-13 cards per team. This would really destroy any real attempt at an As Played Replay. I never expected Strat to print out the 5 games played 50 minute guys but too many times guys with 30 games played and 180 minutes would be missing. The only specific example I remember was not getting a Ryan Hollins card one year despite the fact he played 61 games but low minutes.
DeleteHaha, sorry for the long post
Haha, nice list Mark! I will answer the rest of it this weekend when I have some time but let me just address the FTA and offensive foul issues. Chris has a post here about that. Basically, when you are shooting a P or I shot and get a D9 or D11 roll (Offensive Foul) you roll a die and half the results will be an offensive foul and half will be a defensive foul. I think Chris treats the defensive fouls as blocking fouls but I treat them as shooting fouls. I use the 20-sided die as Chris recommended in his seminal Expert Rules years ago but I believe he uses a 6-sided now. If I get an odd result it is an offensive foul (odd/offensive) and if even then a defensive foul. I have been using this in my 1965-66 replay (cards created from SOM computer card images) and free throw attempts are pretty accurate. The league average that year was 37 per game and I am gettng 34.6. The margin I think can be explained by the fact that I am using today's NBA rules (i.e., a foul on a 2-pt FGA receive 2 FTAs) while I believe at that time the 3 for 2 rule was in effect whereby a player who was fouled would get an extra free throw if he missed one of his first two. Of all Chris's rules, this might be my favorite as it cuts down on offensive fouls and adds free throws.
DeleteLet me knock out a couple more:
Delete(1) Not enough TOs. That is a tough one. Chris has a post in March about the FB offense which I think is relevant. I know that I look at the passing of my RG and FB shooting of the RG, LG and RF of my team, and only when that seems stronger than the halfcourt offense do I implement the break. That probably isn't realistic. NBA teams break even when they probably shouldn't. Using Chris's FB system will likely increase TOs. Chris also said something in his Expert Rules about this that I think would work. Simplified, I think that every time the Control and FB Control call for a pass, and you flip the card, if the number is 20 (or you can roll a 20-sided) no matter what the result would otherwise be the result is a TO.
(2) too many offensive rebounds-Chris addresses this in his MArch post entitled Rebounds Rule Adjustment. Not sure the exact details but some offensive rebounds will see the offense reset. Rodman isn't going to be able to go up with it every time.
(3) too many FG attempts and points. The above rebound point helps a little with that. I think my Gerald Wilkins' rule helps. AND my last point in that post, which Chris comments on, where I say if you really want to be more realistic you could roll the 20-sided every time you get an Opponent Defense reading of "pass to any 1+" AND the team has more than one 1+. We all pass the ball to the most efficient player. For me that is part of the fun. But to be more realistic the shots should be proportioned as they were in real life. Example, 65-66 LAkers, Jerry West is an efficient Scorer and Elgin Baylor is not. Jerry is a 3 I believe and Elgin a 2. I go to Jerry every single time I have a choice. That isn't realistic. If I wanted more realism I should roll the 20-sided in the Opponent Defense situation and give it to JErry maybe 1-12 and Elgin 13-20 (JErry is a 3 and Elgin a 2 so Jerry should get it a little more).
(4) finally, my favorite topic, the 3-pointer I have promised a post about this but have come to realize it is such a complicated topic as there are a lot of factors. I think the starting place is Chris's suggestion that you take the player's ratio of 3-pt attempts to total FG attempts, multiply it by 20, and that becomes the player 3-pt rating. You then roll the 20-sided for just about every shot attempt. BUT there are factors which should decrease that rating (2-pt replays), factors which should increase it (dazzlers received, 3-pt replays, offensive rebound shots) and then how do we deal with the "Switch" situations (do we roll, do we just choose, guys like Korver for example would ALWAYS take a 3, guys like LeBron would take a 2). I will eventually post about this, but the answer isn't an easy one. But I think starting with the ratio and 20-sided die will definitely increase the 3 attempts and is a good beginning.
(5) finally, as for Ryan Hollins. He has a card, at least as an additional player, for every season except his first, when he appeared in 27 games for 185 minutes, and in 2014-15 when he logged 46 games and 441 mins. The former is excusable but the latter isn't. SOM should have made a card for the 2014-15 season. When I created cards for 65-66 my baseline was 200 mins or 30 games. For later seasons I am going to go down a little further, maybe 20 games or 100 mins.
Haha! I've been so busy. I will post something soon.
ReplyDelete