Hopefully helpful advice about running tournaments

I was going to write a blog about the World Cup but I'm still very tired and it will be a very long one. However as I got asked by 2 different people today if I had any pointers on running tournaments, I thought I'd write this blog that I've been meaning to do for ages anyway.

Firstly, let me just say that all of this is just my advice. There is no hard and fast guide on how to run tournaments, and BloodBowl is great because lots of people run their tournaments in their own individual way. Feel free to ignore any or all of the below, however this is the advice I would give to someone asking me how to run their first tournament.

I've tried to make this as comprehensive as possible, but if anyone can think of anything to add then do let me know. This also means that there might be sections that are entirely irrelevant to you. Feel free to skip over them. I'm also writing this after getting back at 2am so if anything needs clarifying/there is a lot of uninterpretable waffle, let me know on this as well! 

Location Location Location

You can't run a BloodBowl tournament without a place to play it. Sorting this out is probably one of the first things you'll need to do as a lot of the other elements will rely on the venue - how much space you've got will define capacity and what type of event is feasible (e.g. Sevens requires less table space - I would recommend always checking how big the tables are!), what timings you can have the venue for will determine how many games you can fit in (most variants will have shorter game times than full BloodBowl for which at least 2:15 is recommended). 

Many tournaments are run in local games stores. These are ideal because they are likely to be cheap, have the space needed for gaming and be happy for you to have a gaming event there. They will also have stuff on sale that your attendees might want to buy so it can be a win win for all. They will have limited space - for example our local gaming store limits us to 16 players so if we want to host a larger event we need to look elsewhere.

Other options that you might want to consider are community centres - these are often reasonably cheap but don't offer much over and above the room space, hotels and conference centres which may be able to offer you things such as discounts on accommodation, free tea and coffee, an onsite bar and/or restaurant which may all be attractive to those looking to play in the tournament.

Pitches

As well as ensuring the tables are big enough for the pitches you are using, you will need to make sure you have enough pitches. You will need one for every 2 players. Some TOs will have enough for this depending on the size of the tournament and their personal collection. Some will need to source additional ones - this will usually involve either asking your league mates to borrow some, or attendees to bring pitches along as well. If you are really lucky (and a really large event), you may be able to sort out a supply of pitches to be used each year. If you get attendees to bring a pitch along, I would suggest asking them to leave it where it is and collect it at the end of the day. Players moving pitches makes for a bit of a nightmare if 2 players end up on a table without a pitch.

Date

Once you've got your venue in mind, the next thing to think about is the date. There are three key considerations here:

1) Is the venue available on the date you want to run it?

2) Are there any other local events that clash with it? If you want to get the event NAF approved (which I would recommend as it helps to attract players) then you need to ensure it isn't on the same date as any other events local to you. In the UK, we have a rule that no event will get approved if it is within 100 miles of another event. For centrally located TOs (tournament organisers) this can be a bit of an issue, but it can be worked around if the TO of the event that was already on that date doesn't have an issue with your event. Things that can help this are if the original event is already sold out, or a different format (e.g. Dungeonbowl rather than regular BloodBowl) or if you're not far off that 100 miles mark. Within the SouthEast, we have a TOs chat on our Discord server where we note down events as soon as they start being considered, before they are confirmed to try to avoid clashes when both events are further down the planning route. 

3) Is there anything else that might prevent people coming to your event? Things to look out for are any large national or international events running at the same time, public holidays, any transport issues that may affect attendance (e.g planned rail strikes or motorway closures - often difficult to know in advance).

Format

What type of event do you want to run? There aren't many options here and the format might have been the motivator for wanting to run the event anyway. 

Do you want to run an individual event, or a doubles/teams event? Running an individual event is definitely simpler to manage.

Do you want to run regular BloodBowl or a variant (Sevens, Gutterbowl, Dungeonbowl etc)? This might be slightly dictated by the venue size and hours of availability.

Timings

Make sure you give enough time for:

- Players to get to the venue
- Players to register that they have arrived
- Playing each game - 2:15 is about the stanard for BB, shorter for variants. It might be worth looking at other events to see their timings
- Breaks between rounds for - players to have a breather, comfort break, snack AND so that you can do all the admin side of things and draw the next round
- Lunch. I can't stress this enough as I get hangry very easily
- Awards ceremony
- Players to get home afterwards

Make sure you keep to these timings as much as possible. Obviously things come up which will prevent this from happening, but you should have a strict dice down policy written in the ruleset and adhere to it. If you're able to have a visible round timer as well, that's a definite bonus. 

Ruleset

I would recommend keeping it simple for your first tournament. You don't want extra headaches caused by complications that you haven't forseen (e.g interactions between crazy weather tables and special rules you've added). I would suggest copying the ruleset from a national or international event, or a large local events, as all the hardwork in making sure it is relatively balanced would have already been done for you. You don't have to but it makes it a bit easier when you've got lots of other things to think about as well. 

Try and make it as clear and explicit as possible. Again, look at how other people write their rulespacks and try to learn from their best practice. Explain exactly how you intend for tiebreakers to work - you want to avoid anyone being a bit annoyed at having the exact same record as the winner and losing out because they didn't know what the tiebreaker was. I would suggest that you explain when awarding the prize if a tiebreaker needed to be used to separate coaches. 

A fellow NAF RC (regional co-ordinator) suggested that you include a description of what a resurrection tournament is if you are using it. Whilst seasoned players only need to see the word resurrection, a new player may have no idea what is means.

Make sure if you are using tiering, it is based on something. It doesn't need to be the same as everyone else's (although there is becoming more consensus on which teams should be in which tier as more data becomes available on the 2020 ruleset) but it needs to be reasonably logical. If you throw Dark Elves in Tier 3 or Goblins in Tier 1, you'd best have a blooming good reason for doing so as people have very strong opinions about these things. 

If you want rosters submitted in advance, make sure coaches are made aware of this. You will likely need to bug several of them several times, so it's good to take some sort of contact info when they register. 

Advertising

Once you've got all these things in place, you're ready to start advertising your event. If you are looking to get NAF approval (which again I recommend) then I'd suggest holding off until that has happened in case any tweaks need to be made to the ruleset or there is an unforseen date clash. 

Where should you advertise it? Anywhere you can think of. I would suggest:

- TalkFantasyFootball
- The NAF website (should be automatic when NAF approved)
- Facebook groups that are likely to be interested in it
- Discord groups that are likely to be interested in it
- The store itself and/or local gaming stores

Make sure to not overdo it though. People will start to get annoyed about being repeatedly bombared by information about an event. However, don't let this stop you from mentioning the event in these places periodically as people's situations will change and not everyone will see the original post. 

Software

Getting software that works for you and your tournament is vital for ensuring the day goes smoothly. Make sure you test it, test it and test it again. Try and break it. Run test tournaments. You need to know it inside out so that you don't spend longer than anticipated on preparing the draw for each round.

The options I know of are:

Score - This is PC based software that has been used for the large majority of tournaments since I started playing BloodBowl. It is fairly customisable and fairly easy to use. It can output draws and tables for you to share, and will upload results directly to the NAF website. Players will play their game and then report their results to the TO to enter them. 

Tourplay - This is becoming more popular for tournaments. Coaches can enter their data in real time on their mobile phones as touchdowns are scored and casualties are caused, meaning no data entry for the TO. This allows them a bit more flexibility, especially if they want to/need to play in the tournament. This also allows all coaches to know how they're getting on and how their friends and rivals are doing. Unlike for leagues, Tourplay is currently free for tournaments. One other benefit is that it allows for easy roster checking.

ExScore - This is an Excel based tournament management software created by former NAF President and pillar of the community, Mike Davies (also known as sann0638). It has the edge over Score if you want to give points for a team win, if you want to record lots of points or if you want to use accelerated swiss (I don't even know that that realy means). Personally I used it for the team tournament we ran, and will be using a modified version for the next one but my day job means I spend a lot of time playing with spreadsheets and macros which probably gives me an advantage here. Mike says that he would use Score himself for basic tournaments.

Tourma - I've not used this myself, so have no experience of it. I know some people like it a lot. If I find out a bit more about it, I'll add that here!

In terms of usage, I'd guess that it is something like 75% Score, 20% Tourplay and 5% for Tourma and ExScore combined, although this is based on anecdotal evidence rather than any actual data.

Roster Checking

There are effectively three methods of ensuring that everyone has rosters that fit the ruleset.

1) Using software to do this. This is one big benefit for Tourplay which allows you to do this (although has a few limitiations when running events at the moment), or it might be possible to use a spreadsheet or something similar. This removes a lot of the admin work for checking rosters, assuming that you can trust the system.

2) Getting your first opponent to check the roster. This shares the load out between all attendees but it has a couple of downsides. Firstly, your opponent will likely only be checking that you haven't overspent, and haven't added too many additional skills. They will probably not be checking if you've underspent or added too few skills. Secondly, an inexperienced player might not really know how to check a roster properly and thirdly, it might be that players aren't as familiar with the ruleset as each other so some rosters will be checked more thoroughly than others. If an error is found, it also doesn't allow much time for a coach to change it prior to their first game. 

3) Tournament Organiser review. This is a lot more admin intensive for the TO, however it allows one consistent approach to checking rosters. If submitted in advance, it allows time for feedback if changes need to be made, ensures that all rosters are compliant with the ruleset, and will pick up underspends and can query anything that looks odd. 

Personally my preference is either option 1 or 3. It is probably the fairest way to approach it. 

Prizes/Trophies

People don't go to BloodBowl tournaments for the prizes, which is why there was a bit of controversy in the community when cash prizes have been offered. At minimum I'd suggest trying to get a little trophy for each prize you want to award. If you can afford a prize as well that's great but TOs always aim to break even - never put yourself out of pocket from running an event if possible. Occassionally we'll have a little bit left over which will go into our league funds for running Tourplay, or into a future event. 

You may be able to get sponsorship from either a local gaming store or BloodBowl 3rd party maker for prizes. There are far too many to list here, but if you keep an eye on Facebook/forums/Discord you'll see which ones are usually happy to sponsor events.

Gifts

I think one of the reason prizes aren't important in BloodBowl is that there is often a gift given away at a tournament so that every competitor gets something. This is a nice to have rather than an essential - I wouldn't mind if I turned up to an event and didn't get something, but I'd be like "ooh cool" if there was a giveaway, especially if it was something unique. Dice are a standard gift, but anything that is slightly out of the norm will make your event more memorable. Again, don't put yourself out of pocket - gifts might be something to think about when you've got a rough idea of the number of attendees and can estimate how much funds are available.

Your main costs are going to be venue, trophies, prizes and gifts. The venue definitely takes priority on the available funds. Everything else is secondary. Remember - don't put yourself out of pocket. This is a hobby.

Spare player

BloodBowl is a game that requires exactly 2 players to play. If you have an odd number then someone has to miss out. That should either be the TO or a player who was specifically recurited to be a spare player and fill in if there is an odd number of players. If you have a large tournament or a team tournament, you will likely want a good few spare players to help fill in and potentially also help you referee the event (see below).

Refereeing

The TO should either be or assign a head referee. Their decision is final on any and all decisions that need to be made. Ideally you don't want the referee to be playing but sometimes it is unavoidable. Get them a snazzy referee shirt if you can, it will make them feel important. If you're the referee, make yourself as familiar as possible with the rulebook and FAQs (I've cross referenced them, I know others cut out and stick in the FAQ) and also the tournament ruleset. 

Communication

On the day, try to be as clear as possible on everything. The key things here are telling people what time they need to be sat down to start their game, who they are playing and when the game should end. Most tournaments try to offer warnings when for example half the time has gone. 

Problems

Things will come up that you need to resolve as a TO. It is not possible to be able to think of everything in advance that might go wrong, however it might be worth thinking through things that could go wrong and having clear in your mind what you would do in each scenario as it will allow you to be better prepared and react more quickly on the day. 

 After the event

Hand out the prizes. Seems obvious but it's always nice to have a few people give you a round of applause (even if begrudgingly) when you win a prize. I'd suggest someone with a loud voice does this if you're in a big room, and make sure that you explain what the prize is, and perhaps add additional information where possible, such as the winners record - e.g. with 3 wins and 1 draw, or with 25 casaulties - and if relevant which tiebreaker was used to get them the award. 

It's good to share the standings as soon after the event as possible. People like to know how they got on and most software should allow you to output this fairly easily. Share it on whichever channels you used to communicate event info. 

If it's a NAF event, then upload the results to the NAF website as soon as is feasible. You might need to wait for a registration or two to be completed so it might take a little while. If you encounter any complications, feel free to contact your NAF regional coordinator (RC), whose details can be found here. 

Measuring the success of the event

Success of an event is an entirely subjective. BloodBowl players are generally quite understanding and forgiving. If your event goes largely to time and everyone leaves smiling then that should be enough to qualify as a success. That should be your primary aim, that games get played and everyone has a good time. If things go wrong, make a note and learn from them. We've started doing feedback forms for our events, which we use to help with decision making for future events.

Some people measure events by other measures - the number of people that turn up, for example. However, in my opinion this should not be a primary measure in any sense. A four player tournament where everyone has a blast, is much better than a 50 player tournament that no-one enjoys. 

Don't get down if you don't get as many people coming along as you'd hoped, just focus on making it a great experience for them all. If everyone has a good time, they will want to come back and will likely bring more people along meaning your next event will have a larger attendance.

I've seen an event by a large organiser (who aren't BloodBowl focussed) get cancelled because there weren't enough people going along. In my opinion, they were running the event for the wrong reasons if that was the case. 

Make sure you know what to get out of it, and focus on making that as good as possible for your attendees.