But thats not blood bowl...

"But that's not blood bowl". That's what the guy said to me on the phone.
What was he on about?
   I run a very successful blood bowl league. I've been doing so since, oh, about 1990 or so.
We play 2 leagues a year (most years, anyway), in my basement/rec room, fixed league style, like the NFL OR the NHL. We average 20 players. The core of our group, the Thursday Night Heroes (we don't play on Thursday nights, and we are not hero's!), are mainly the same group of guys I grew up with, playing D&D and other role playing games way back since the late 1970's. We are all married with kids and besides blood bowl, we play miniature wargames and whatnot.
   Its a good group of friends (the friend part is the number one rule with us), who mainly play to have a good time and get away from the reality of everyday life.
We are competitive and we all want to win, but there are no big arguments, fits or "I'm gonna take my team and go home" bs. A few beers, a few laughs, that's the way we roll.
  At one time after BB 3rd Ed. was released, the owner of imagination workshop, our local FLGS, invited the stores GW rep to come to my house to check out our league. He said we had the biggest league on the eastern US that he knew of. He thought it was quite cool (at the time, I was still living with mom, we had 29 players and it was too loud and too crowded. Also, too many fair weather coaches.)
Those were the days...

 We are always on the look out for new players, and every year, we seem to get a handful, and one or two stick with the club. Sometimes, however, we get some people who just don't fit in with our "for fun and friendship" club.
  Now, I'm sure I could make you lot LOL with some tales of these nuckleheads. We've all seen them: the guys who make their team roster and can't seem to count, the power gamers who have to win or they start to miss the Saturday games (only to return at the beginning of the new season), the guys who stall constantly... I could go on, but it doesn't matter. 
 
  I had a guy get my phone number from our game shop notice. He said he's played for quite awhile, and was looking for a league. He asked if we played the latest game Ed. (the one you can download from granny's site). I said no, and the guy tried to tell me we are "doing it wrong".
 I asked him how should we be doing it?
We play a highly modified 3rd Ed., we have a bunch of house rules that we have taken from the net and from the old Citadel Journal, we still play with Star Players (we have a card file for about 150 star players we have gotten from GW 2nd Ed., the internet, and stars that started off as normal players, but got a bunch of SPP's and are now Star Players, like King Tough (a mummy), Junior Say Ouch (a hobgoblin), to name just a few.

 In our league, players buy stars and they remain on their roster until the get killed, traded, etc. mean to say, we never liked the inducement rules. And besides, when our season ends, we don't play uber teams.  We make new teams for each new season, none of the TV220 vs TV120. That may work somehow, but its no fun, and we don't do it. We use the "between game events" and we use the events cards.
 And we have fun doing it, week after week, so I told the guy, "you can come by on Saturday afternoon for the warm up games and see if you like what we do". He didn't show up, and thats to bad.
  I could tell by the way he tried to convince me on the phone, that we were playing the game wrong, that he wouldn't show, he just wanted something more (or less).
I hope he can find it, because I'll take my friends and OUR GAME over 6 minute turns and "inducing" a beer girl (for the life of me, I don't understand what the rule is, really) or a Star Player for one game (the idea of renting stars is goofy to me).
I like secret weapons rolls. I like random events cards. I like spiky norman.
And so do my friends.