toad brings up several points and a valid concern.
Technically a team could sit down to start and as soon as time starts say they quit and have 0 points. Now because of that this year they would have ranked 20th. For doing nothing at all they would beat 4 other teams that tried and tested the gamed and tried to play.
An excellent and well-said point. A team that did nothing would beat 4 other teams.
At the same time, though, the team that did nothing also has no story to tell about the tournament. They had no fun, bested or were bested by no monsters, and solved or were slain by no traps.
Even teams that are utterly massacred usually at least have some enjoyment from the experience...we certainly try to write interesting and exciting scenarios for our tournament-goers to experience.
What I'm saying is: even if they beat 4 other teams, they still lose.
Still, it is an interesting point, and it seques into your proposition nicely:
You could work out a point system that maybe cuts the death penalty in precents depending on where you die. TPK in the first 5 rooms- full penalty. Make it the last boss and wipe- 25% only. Something like that.
This is interesting, especially if at the same time the bonuses for defeating the encounters also went up...it makes it more likely a team would try to defeat The Big Evil since the potential reward greatly outweighs the penalty.
An excellent suggestion.
Riffing off that, if there were to be a "quit" penalty, it could also scale one way or the other, either getting more severe the deeper you go (because it's harder to go back the way you came) or more severe at the start (because you didn't DO anything). Of the two, I favor the former...commit!...because quitting at the beginning has its own natural consequence, as I explained above.
I would hate to see speed-DND take over where there is a total rush to the end to kill the big guy because the points are too big.
I agree with Hamakto's sentiment here. I can't stand many of the CCGs out there because the game is over by round 3 or 4.
EDIT: Actually I'm referring to one in particular. You know who you are.
We generally try to counter the exploration bonus and the Kill the Bad Guy bonus with points awarded for resolving plot-specific issues.
(By the way, the scoring on all previous modules is available in that module...reading one is a way to prepare for the tournament)
If plot-points were weighty, it may entice some teams to try to resolve the module.
All the above scenarios pre-assume that we're following the End Boss model, by the way. This is NOT guaranteed to be true in all rounds of future tournaments.
In fact, it's also not guaranteed that points alone will continue to be the sole criteria for advancement. If such an additional or replacement criteria were introduced, of course, it would either be part of the Player's Pack or communicated directly to the team at the round's start by the Judge.
Which brings me to something else toad mentioned.
...but if you are going to have "insider" rules and stuff that isn't shared with all contestants then for shame.
Indeed. If we were sharing inside information with teams that would be unconscionable. This is a serious concern of mine, which is why we, among other things, vet our Judges and playtest groups.
Quitting, however, was not an insider rule. If anything, it was an easter egg, much like how to
levitate with the moonlight in round 2...you had to ask. Teams with more exposure to the tournament are more likely to discover that this was a possibility through mere chance, but this is could also be said of our scoring system, which is available to anyone who examines a module from the previous year.
Experience gives a team a natural advantage. This is the #2 reason we change the module's theme and style (and the module's project manager) every year.
Darn, you just figured out our tactics from this year. You are gonna be tough to beat in 2008.
All kidding aside, the 2008 tournament is going to something else. It's Year Five and the first 4E tournament. Fuhgeddaboutit.