Weighing in… (Please read the whole thing)

With the recent re-interpretation of Nuffle’s holy texts, we all seem to be in a quandary. Should we turn a blind eye to these new revelations and hold fast in our current convictions? Or should we adopt this new gospel as our own?

Before I start sounding even more like the good Pastor, let me give my own opinion on the matter.

First and foremost, out current ruleset is broken. Aging, negative monies, and a handicap system that promotes uneven games just scratches the surface of the issues. LRB5 fixes the majority of these issues.

Second, we have all shown in different amounts an unwillingness to properly review our current rules and make sound decisions to fix/improve them. In fact, the one time we did legitimately try to deeply analyze our ruleset, we all agreed the interactions between the rules were too subtle for us all to fully grasp and that modifying rules individually could result in very negative side effects.

Third, by removing the burden of “fixing” the base rules one by one, we can all focus on our own teams, and the nifty “new” rules we like so much (ie: Secret Weapons, Cyberware, Spellcasters, Stadiums, Special Tournaments, etc…).

All of this of course led us to approving the “official adoption” proposal which Hobratsch now wishes to rescind.

Moving HUMBBL over to LRB5 is actually a very straightforward task. For the most part it involves very slight and very logical modifications to either our current HUMBBL ruleset or to LRB5. These changes I have already outlined in my two previous LRB5 proposals (which have technically passed).

The only direct conflict is with Secret Weapons. For Secret Weapons I see a number of possible solutions. Of those, the two best are: 1) Allow one new secret weapon position player per team (Sir Helpful believes this is too powerful) or 2) Allow secret weapons as inducements. Each has its own pros and cons, but we can discuss those at a different time.

I could begin arguing specific points, but I’d rather discuss with you my vision for HUMBBL in the future assuming we adopt LRB5.

One, I have almost completed a new spreadsheet for our league (based on LRB5). It’s an Excel based database and will not lose season to season data like our current spreadsheet does. All the Team Data is currently accurate up to week 5 of the current round, but I have yet to fix or enter the Player Data. An example can be seen here:

http://home.comcast.net/~humbbl/

Two, I would like to see a pdf based HUMBBL rulebook containing all of our rules. This would include the base game rules, plus all of our additions. An example 1st sixteen pages is here (Please note the HUMBBL specific “Did You Knows” and “Slow Motion Replays"):

http://home.comcast.net/~humbbl/humbbl_lrb_ex.pdf

For an even better example, here is the current Weather page. It’s much cleaner and easier to reference than our current rulebook:

http://home.comcast.net/~humbbl/weather.pdf

Three, I would like to revive the old HUMBBL Owner’s Association website. For a reminder, the old REBBL based website can be found here:

http://home.comcast.net/~humbbl/oa/

Four, along with the above, I would like to begin a HUMBBL specific forum for posting game results, rules proposals, and for general discussion. Our blog does a good job, but is not ideal.
Combined, these four items would become the basis of our new website.

The overall goal here is to make the league vibrant. By having the base rules fixed we can focus on what each of us finds fun vs. arguing over the basic rules. By finally having an opportunity to discuss and improve our “extra” stuff, the league will become even more enjoyable.

Wow, I have a lot more to say, but this is already long enough. Maybe we need another conference call…

- Arden Mors