Topical Post: Townball

Discussion on game mastering Fading Suns. May contain spoilers; caution is recommended!
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Leviathan of Maddoc
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Topical Post: Townball

Postby Leviathan of Maddoc » Mon Feb 02, 2015 3:56 am

I had meant to mention this a bit back but with the Superbowl on today it seemed like a good time.

Townball

Townball is a popular sport throughout the known worlds, but nowhere as huge as it is on Hawkwood and Hazat worlds. The Sport originally began as a training exercise for militia during the early fall. Townball quickly evolved into a competitive sport because it gave nobles an inexpensive way to instill pride and loyalty in their people and often it created an opportunity to show off peasants that they were interested in trading to neighbors. As popularity grew it became a point of pride and gambling between landholders. From there it was only a matter of time until planetary competition took hold and professional leagues formed. Delphi has a 200,000 seat townball stadium with high tech features that rival the glitz of the most advanced spaceport.

The game is played on a 54 foot by 54 foot field. The professional field is cement covered in a layer of foam rubber, the more rural fields are mud. Centered on the field is the rise (Also refereed to as Town). The rise is 10 feet in diameter and 2 feet high with a natural grade. Centered in the rise is a 12 inch hole 18 inches deep called The Keep (Also refereed to as The bucket). The objective of the game is for the seven man offensive team (also known as Raiders) to put a solid rubber ball, 6 inches in diameter, into The Keep, and for the seven man defensive team (also known as Guards) to stop them without touching the The Keep. Offensive players begin the game with on hand on on of the four corner post of the field and defensive players all standing on the Rise of the field. Each round of the game lasts for 5 minutes or until one team scores against the other. At the end of the round offensive and defensive teams switch. The game is played for 10 rounds, or overtime rounds if there's a tie. There are two kinds of fouls in the game, Punitive, and Communicative. Putative fouls like defenders locking arms or players striking opponents result in the player offensive or defensive having to run to the corner of the field, and touch the corner post before returning to play. Serious offenses like a Defender touching The Keep or a player ignoring a Putative call results in a Communicative foul where the player is ejected from the game for the round. There is no option to replace players who are fouled out of play, so Communicative calls to one side or the other are usually decisive to the round.

Pro games are more formal and generally have more rules than rural games. The players in professional leagues aren't really much bigger or more skilled than peasant bowls but their tactics are much more evolved. In professional play the leagues are divided by gender with male and female divisions. Competitive play is restricted to humans, but most planets also have Traditional versus Open leagues which mostly amount to teams that are mostly human versus teams that are mostly Vorrox.

Townball is a team sport in the realest sense. There are no positions or even officially a team captain. Players names aren't called on the field, only their number. Most fans couldn't name the players on their favorite team unless they are legendary players of the sport. However even people who couldn't recognize the heraldry of the 5 major noble houses know the heraldry of their favorite team and their rival. Rural events can sometimes become very rowdy, especially if a favored team doesn't play well and often even professional games are broken up by the police when the fans begin to brawl in the stands or in some cases riot in the streets. While the League and the Church are involved in Townball matches the sport is ultimately managed and controlled by nobles and matches and their fanfare rarely work out against the interests of the local landed lords. The few times that Townball has been tried to have been used as a platform for unpopular politics or serf rebellions has never worked out well for the players of the game so Townball players on every level of the game are paranoid about any tomfoolery in their matches. While ostensibly Townball is a peasant sport it has fans in the highest echelons of power and the upcoming game often becomes a source of conversation at Guild power meetings and Inquisitional inspections.

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Bertjammin
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Re: Topical Post: Townball

Postby Bertjammin » Mon Feb 02, 2015 7:05 am

Who runs the associated gambling on the results? Scravers? I could also see heavy investment by Reeves in the teams (Nobles organise and run it but might receive Sponsorship from the guilds) and recruitment and trading of players could involve the Muster....

I also imagine a Decados/Al Malik aerial variant where the hapless team members play wearing jet/heli/flightpacks (but then again I was always a fan of 2000ADs "Harlem Heroes"

Great ideas ;)
"The crazy ol' Vorox"

Something witty, pithy and observant ought to go here.

Oh well.

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Angelman
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Re: Topical Post: Townball

Postby Angelman » Mon Feb 02, 2015 7:38 am

Great stuff! I know our very own Colonel Bogie is playing around with some sports stuff ;)
Writer, editor, & developer for:
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(numerous projects)

Bogie
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Re: Topical Post: Townball

Postby Bogie » Mon Feb 02, 2015 4:01 pm

I am but didn't quite get it done in time for the big Sportsball game :)
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Leviathan of Maddoc
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Re: Topical Post: Townball

Postby Leviathan of Maddoc » Tue Feb 03, 2015 10:00 pm

Thanks all. Townball got invented out of necessity for an epic I ran some time ago and it's stuck with us in our games. We've decided it has a nice Fading Suns feel so I thought I'd share it for others to borrow if they like.


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