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Returning for its fifth year at PaizoCon is...
Yes. It's that time again. The first ships are already sailing into port and the small ramshackle town near the Black Rock is putting up tents and making the place ready to accept the surge of free captains who come to drink, fight, gamble, and watch their prized beasties spill as much blood as possible on the rock. The captains are docking their ships and going ashore to carouse and get supplies. Soon they will make it down to their boats and get their monsters ready to fight in the tournament. It's time for Green Blood on a Black Rock
For those of you not familiar with the event, Mike Kortes started this event at the second PaizoCon in 2009 and I was lucky enough to be a player in the event. Since then it's been difficult for Mike to make it to thhe convention, so in 2010 Brandon Hodge and myself asked Mike if we could take it over.
Here's the first report of the first event. I played Inky
I haven't been the best at documenting it, but Sozin put together an awesome play by play from 4711.
So, now that some of you are caught up, who got in the lottery? Who are my free captains? Sound off!
Green blood! Black rock! Green blood! Black rock!
Free Captain Larisa of the Skylight, ready to spill blood, Master Daigle!
Not in it, but I plan on showing up anyways.
I'm going to play a kobold. And I'm going to kick everyone's petusch.
Green blood! Black rock! Green blood! Black rock!
Green Blood on a Black Rock is coming!?
Awesome.
I am so jealous of those Free Captains who enter. Can't wait to learn what monsters will be put forward in 4713!
GREEN BLOOD! BLACK ROCK!
Yarr. I haven't found a beastie to replace Ol' Rattlebones, so I won't be throwin' in this year. Ye kin be sure I'll be placin' bets though. I've got an angle...
The "Why do I always roll 1 on Leap" Menu:
- Glyptodon in blankets
- Tossed salad à la Shambling Mode
- Blue Dragon filet mignon (the chef regretfully informed me they were out of Mammoth brisket)
- Skewers of Bear Polar flambé
Remember, do not declaw your Bulettes.
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The "Why do I always roll 1 on Leap" Menu:
- Glyptodon in blankets
- Tossed salad à la Shambling Mode
- Blue Dragon filet mignon (the chef regretfully informed me they were out of Mammoth brisket)
- Skewers of Bear Polar flambéRemember, do not declaw your Bulettes.
Skewers provided by the manticore that fought the polar bear shortly beforehand.
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I somehow never heard of this tournament before, but it sounds so awesome that I want to try an implement this in a con in my own country.
Can anyone share more details about the contest? especially the following:
1)How does the drafting process work? is there a giant pool of monsters with player being chosen arbitrarily to pick next? Or something more randomized than that?
2) How many players make a good size for this kind of tournament?
3) Are all monsters on the same power level? or same CR? what is the recommended power level for a monster to have?
4) Why was the ruling made that monsters keep their injuries from round to round? not only does this sort of rule out any monster with fast healing (it would have a significant advantage of healing fully after each fight while others don't), it also ensures that the further you go into the tournament, the shorter and more luck intensive matches are going to get. For example, in the linked tournament report, the finals was described as unexciting due to low HP pools on the combatants. Is there a reason I'm missing why the monsters don't just heal entirely from match to match?
I'm thinking of maybe implementing a system where players can spend their money from winning bets or fights in the arena to purchase items from a short list, that will give them an edge in the next fight when they choose to use it - obvious examples are health potions, but other options - like further potion or other expendable wondrous items - are valid as well. Any thoughts on that?
thanks!
Green Blood on a Black Rock, now franchising. Sounds awesome!
Adam Daigle, Brandon Hodge and some of the veteran players are probably the people you most want to tap. But as to one point. . .
4) Why was the ruling made that monsters keep their injuries from round to round? not only does this sort of rule out any monster with fast healing (it would have a significant advantage of healing fully after each fight while others don't), it also ensures that the further you go into the tournament, the shorter and more luck intensive matches are going to get. For example, in the linked tournament report, the finals was described as unexciting due to low HP pools on the combatants. Is there a reason I'm missing why the monsters don't just heal entirely from match to match?
I don't know if this quirk is still in the tournament, but at one time every monster healed a specific amount between rounds - and it wasn't a lot. When your monster took a big hit, you felt it.
There were indeed fast healing monsters, in particular the troll. The troll was a lot lower CR than the average beastie in the competition, but its ability to start every round at full hit points was supposed to compensate, maybe even making it a potential tournament favourite. ("Outwit, outlast, outplay. . .")
This was complicated by strategic considerations. There were also monsters in the draft such as a juvenile black dragon (acid breath) and a fire elemental. They were likely to perform quite well against a troll and a bad bracket match up would spell an early exit.
This made for some interesting considerations. When you picked your monster, you had to pay attention to how much it healed inbetween rounds. This was written on every monster's card.
So yes, this could easily be run with full healing inbetween each round - I think that would be cleaner and I agree it would lead to longer battles in later rounds. But it would also change the way you evaluate your creature choices. A high hp, low AC beast who gets to heal up for free might becomes more valuable than a low hp high AC monster for example. Hard to say.
Cool beans.
"Always bet on Bulette"
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Hey, Shoanti, glad that I asked you ;)
About the healing, I'm considering to integrate this into a mini game where you can spend some of the gold you earn from victories and successful bets to buy all sorts of consumables for your monster, and potions of healing would be one option. This would give the game an additional strategic note of deciding when to spend your resources, and it would make fights you are not participating in more engaging to watch - after all, your money depends on the outcome, and you can use your money to influence you own chances to advance further in the tournament.
Any way, is there a chance you could answer some of my other questions? the most pressing one issue is that I'm not sure how the drafting part was handled, and I want to get it just right. Did each player have a single monster? or multiple monsters? how did you organize the picks in order to make them fair? were there brackets or was there only a single pool to choose from?
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Hey there Lord Snow. I’ll try to give you a run down of the event and hope I don’t miss anything.
First, it is a bracketed tournament and we have it set up for 8 players. We provide a selection of 24 monsters ranging from CR 4 to CR 7. Some creatures are slightly modified to either restrict flight, negate some spell-like abilities, or make them a bit dumber than normal. We start with a roll off to determine who gets first pick of the monsters and the person with the highest roll picks first, then the next highest roll and so on. Everyone picks one monster at a time. Contestant #1 starts and when it gets to Contestant #8 they pick two and then the order reverses up the line back to Contestant #1 who picks two and then it goes back down the line to Contestant #8 until each contestant has three monsters. Then, the person who got last pick of the monsters gets first pick of where they want to place themselves on the bracket. First pick is uneventful, but as more monsters go on the board people start to get more strategic about what they are going up against. (For example, if someone has a very young blue dragon on the board and someone else has a shambling mound, it’d be a smart bet to pair those up.) We run a “daytime” bracket and a “nighttime” bracket and the winner of each of those go head to head for the win. When placing their monsters everyone must place one monster in the daytime and one in the nighttime (so you don’t end up fighting yourself).
The monsters do get some healing between bouts, but it isn’t much. This is to add a bit more strategy and to see if people will bring in their substitute if their primary monster is getting too beat up.
All the betting is for flavor. Odds are settled before each fight, money is collected and then payouts occur after each fight. (Brandon brings gold foil chocolate coins, so bettors can decide if they want to eat their winnings before the final tally, and a prize is awarded to the wealthiest bettor.)
I award prizes for overall winner, second place, and best betting.
... (For example, if someone has a very young blue dragon on the board and someone else has a shambling mound, it’d be a smart bet to pair those up.) ...
I still got my dragon to eat a lot of salad (4712)