Star League Experiments

I did a little tinkering with the Star League rules (originally the Quick Play soccer rules). Some of the experiments:

Alter the shot table to make goals easier to score
This change made it became TOO easy, especially for the better team. I played one week and routs were common. I threw away the results and restored the table to its original state.

Increased the chances to 6 per half.
It helped a little but games seemed too long (especially mismatches that ended in routs). I played one week with 6 chances, then pared it back to 5, which seems to be a good number.

Change the dice rolling convention
The Quick Play Soccer (QPS) rules call for rolling 3D6s, looking for "passes" (numbers <= the applicable rating). This meant that the team with the better offense tended to dominate and the weaker team rarely even managed to get a shot off. I needed a system that created more randomness. I could use the original QPS system that included a Chance table (rather than going straight to midfield), but that seemed too random when I first played.

I previously mentioned using a De Bellis Antiquitatis system and I decided to experiment with that. I reduced all ratings by 2 (so they ranged from 0 to 3). A chance would involve rolling D6 + rating for each side and comparing the rolls. Keeping the QPS tables, I used the ratio of the rolls to indicate the difference in passes. For example, a tie was = 0; a ratio between 1 and 2 (exclusive) was = 1; from 2 (inclusive) to 3 (exclusive) was = 2; 3 or more was = 3.

This system created more variability in who attained control of the ball, leading to more even games overall. In fact, the first game I played was a tense, 3-2 game (more on that later). Goals scored went to 1.5 per game (from 0.9) although that is only based on one week of results. I think this change works, and I'll be continuing with it for the rest of the season.